Bellows Forge

About

Custom, artistic ironwork by Roy Bellows

Story

BELLOWS FORGE was founded in 1976 in Fredericksburg, Texas, and is now located in Buda, Texas at 111 North Cedar Street.

The artist, ROY BELLOWS, studied drawing and painting with Warren Hunter at his La Villita School of Art in San Antonio, Texas during the late 1950’s.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from the University of Chicago in 1966.

He learned the basics of blacksmithing from Frank Turley at Turley Forge in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1974.

He apprenticed with Toni Benetton in Mogliano Veneto, Italy in 1980. He was one of Benetton’s last students at the Accademia Internazionale del Ferro Battuto, and he was one of only two Americans to have ever worked with him.

Roy Bellows’ work is found in numerous private collections in the United States and in Mexico. He has exhibited at the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, the Laguna-Gloria Art Museum in Austin, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, and the Sarah Cambell Blaffer Gallery of the University of Houston.

Roy is a member of the Artist-Blacksmith’s Association of North America (ABANA) and Balcones Forge. He belongs to the Meteoritical Society and has custom-made iron meteorite rings since 1981.