Born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas, She started practicing the smithing crafts after a childhood full of tinkering, making, fixing, and, much to her parent’s chagrin, destroying in the effort to understand how things are put together and work. Dana also grew up with a fascination with all things medieval.
She made her first knife when she was twenty in her parents’ backyard, taking one of her dad’s claw hammers, a hammer she still has and uses, fashioning a charcoal forge from a fire pit, and using a rock as an anvil.
The knife was terrible, but Dana was hooked.