Dana St. Amand
Dana is an Artisan Blacksmith and Bladesmith based in Los Angeles, California.
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.
She has now been building her skills for over nine years, mostly as a hobbyist. Dana credits her time smithing as a meditative experience of self reflection and decompression, often speaking on the idea of transforming steel being a catalyst of exploring her gender identity and later her gender transition.
Dana began taking commissions during the Covid lock downs of 2020.
Today, Dana practices in her home workshop in between projects she works in the film industry.
