Ever since man first discovered fire, he has used it to shape his world. Lighting his way with torches, he made his way through the dark of night. He fended off foes and used it as a tool of destruction. In his enlightenment, he used it as a tool for construction, and finally, as a means to create art.

For the past 15 years, Christopher Thomson has used the fires of his forge to coax steel into designs that serve the artistic needs of the soul and the functional needs of the mind and body. His creations - lamps, candlesticks, fireplace tool sets, chandeliers, tables, chairs, beds and more - have found their way into homes and businesses the world over.

In a small New Mexican town with his wife Susan and six apprentices at his side, Thompson has found a balance between his art, family and work from which he draws his inspiration. Each year he makes forays into the mountains, canyons and deserts of the Southwest to reacquaint himself with the rhythms of the earth, often playing his flute to match the lyricism he encounters there.

Though he says that those moments don't necessarily translate directly into designs for his work, you need only to look at those designs to sense the balance he has found there.

"Designs of my current pieces have evolved form working in series," he said. "I work with the steel in a direct way, allowing the hammering, stretching and bending of the forming process to add to the design. Rather than force the hot steel to a preconceived shape, I strive for an improvised interaction to that each piece attains its own presence and lyricism."

You can see it especially in two of his bed designs - the Wave Bed and the Vessel Bed.

The sinewy blue-steel curves of the Wave Bed recall undying constancy of the ocean. Of the Vessel Bed, Thomson said, "Sitting on water-smoothed rocks, welcoming the dampness, and listening to the interplay and echoes of teeming life and splashing riffles, I designed this Vessel Bed in a state of wonder, identifying with the stylized vessel, offering its contents to the horizons."

Over the years, Thomson has expressed his creativity and honed his work ethic through various media. His blacksmithing education began in high school; he studied pottery in college and at the wheels of master potters; he majored in music, concentrating on the flute, a passion since childhood.

He has taught pottery, blacksmithing and kayaking; designed and constructed homes, including his own solar home; and since starting Christopher Thomson Ironworks, has taken on huge commissions for his designs from hotels, restaurants, corporations and residential customers.

Eight galleries, seven in the Southwest and one in Washington, D.C., carry his designs.