Stephen Bondi Remembered

by Russell Jaqua

With Stephen Bondi’s passing on Sunday, May 30, 2004, it could be said that his death was just another example of Steve being ahead of his time.  Thirty-eight years ago at Alma College in Alma, Michigan, his trailblazing nature was already in full gear.  It was Steve who introduced me, a Motown boy, to the Jefferson Airplane, Jim Hendrix, and the Grateful Dead, long before anybody in Michigan had heard of any of them.  And so it went.

It may seem unlikely that two college buddies unaware of metal would ultimately dedicate their lives to the same arts craft.  But I think, in a way, this was inevitable given Steve’s force of personality.  Steve saw to it that I got a handle on life after I returned from Viet Nam.  By 1970, Steve had a M.F.A. from the University of Arkansas. I, on the other hand, was a loose cannon in my wanderings after the war and it was Steve who suggested that I visit Penland School of Crafts.  Steve’s encouragement and Penland Director Bill Brown, Sr.’s generosity changed, perhaps even saved, my life.  In 1974, at Penland, Steve and I started working steel.  Afterward, Steve found me an apprenticeship at Stone Temper Forge in Maryland.

However, Steve took the bigger leap and went to Italy where he was fortunate enough to study under Toni and Simone Benetton in Treviso.  Steve came to the infamous 1976 ABANA conference in Carbondale, Illinois with slides of a shop, a body of work, and a hammer that few American smiths had ever dreamed of.  We left Carbondale, IL, drove to Detroit and looked at air hammers.  And again, Steve was first.

By 1980, Steve had brought the Italian phenomenon onto our main-stage by inviting Simone Benetton to the ABANA conference in Santa Cruz, California.  The pneumatic hammer provided the beat for that show and American smithing was changed forever.

Steve’s influence was also felt by his brother, Michael, who bought two Nazel hammers at auction in Los Angeles.  Mike transported the hammers to the Bay Area and Bondi Metals, the first shop in the United States to use air hammers for sculptural and decorative metalwork, was born.  Soon after, Bondi Metals’ “Tree of Life” staircase commission was a landmark in the early New Iron Age movement of this country (see The Contemporary Blacksmith, by Dona Meilach, pg. 68.  The recent Meilach books represent a significant record of Steve’s work).

I have often felt that in Italy, Steve saw something that very few of us in this country had encountered or even knew how to imagine: a successful art business.  The Golden Age of Samuel Yellin had waned as the culture shifted.  In the mid-seventies, the small remnant of individual smiths was just that: individuals struggling with the fundamentals of the craft.  In Italy, Steve was able to work in a shop with five blacksmiths and a team of welders, detailers, and designers that pooled the expertise of 25-30 guys.  Steve’s exposure to this scale of forge-shop fueled our own ambitions.

Unlike the British or German smiths, the Italians, for the most part, did not participate in the internationalism of the New Iron Age movement.  There had not been the likes of Richard Quinnell or Manfred Bredohl.  There was, however, Stephen Bondi.  Through repeated trips to Italy, Steve became more convinced of the depth of Italian talent.  Not only did Steve bring to the American table Toni and Simone Benetton, but also Alessandro Mazzucotelli, Carlo Rizzardo, and most recently at the 2000 ABANA conference in Flagstaff, Arizona, Angelo Bartolucci.  Angelo’s astonishing ability to manipulate steel and his unbroken link to the smithing past through generations of smiths in his own family marked yet one more major influence in my own career.  In the past thirty years, it has been the Italians who have most informed my sensibility and technique.  Thanks Steve.

Mr. Stephen Bondi, you gave me a handle on life with a piece of steel on the other end of it.  Then you showed me what I could do with it.  It has meant the entire endeavor of my own journey.  For that, there are no words to express my gratitude.  Ciao, bambini.     

Back To
First Page