48 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine business Dreamcatchers that appropriately deco- rate her storefront. Iron Man M atthew Foster never imagined he’d grow up to be a blacksmith. In fact, he planned on being an engineer. It wasn’t until he went on to study sculpture at the University of Maine that he heard the clang that dreams are made of. “I studied art there and particularly focused on sculpture. The sculpture studio at the UMaine has a small blacksmithing setup that just consists of a forge, an anvil, a vice, and some hammers and tongs,” Foster says. While working as the sculpture studio technician at the university, Foster bought multiple books on blacksmithing, includ- ing three he continues to source today: The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexan- der G. Weygers, The New Edge of the An- vil by Jack Andrews, and The Art of Black- smithing by Alex W. Bealer. “The knowl- edge of blacksmiths was never really writ- ten down. It’s only been in the last 100 years that we’ve documented how black- smiths did what they did. Now we’re sort of documenting these things that were never documented before for future generations.” Today, Foster runs Black Dog Iron- works (named after his two dogs) from his home in West Enfield. “If you told me