Hunter-Gatherers

Making tools to source food was humankind’s earliest act of invention and creativity – a quest that inspires the work of Cape-based blacksmith Conrad Hicks and food designer Caro Jesse de Waal

- Kelly Berman 

“We both love tools,” muses Caro Jesse de Waal, a designer who creates sensory experiences using food, art, scent and sound. She and her life partner, blacksmith Conrad Hicks, share a long-held interest in the everyday implements of human industry. “Artists’ tools, cooks’ tools, building tools – all tools are the same really. It just depends on the scale.” For Caro and Conrad, it goes deeper than an appreciation of the functional beauty of tools; it’s the way they shed light on human development – going all the way back to the Stone Age.

“Man has been making tools for two-and-a-half-million years,” explains Conrad. “Spoken language only arose about 9 000 years ago, so tools and physical gestures were our means of expression.” It’s a subject he is uniquely qualified to talk about. Unlike other craftsmen, blacksmiths have to make their own tools. They are the original toolmakers: traditionally, blacksmiths made not only the swords, armour, hinges and horseshoes, but also the implements necessary to perform those tasks. The same is true today – particularly for Conrad, who keeps to traditional blacksmithing principles, forging everything by hand.