Meet Trevor Morgan

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Trevor Morgan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Trevor, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

You have to keep it fresh. In my work, things can get monotonous if you keep making the same thing over and over, I’m guilty of doing this from time to time. So regardless of the popularity of a particular piece, or it’s value, if it starts to feel like work or, if the excitement is gone, I will try something new and different. Experimental pattern welding, totally different techniques, or something like that. This keep it fresh and exciting. Also, it forces me to learn new things. I find myself to be the most excited when learning something new and putting it into practice.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m a knife maker, and Bladesmith. I’ve been doing this for a rather short time compared with many of my fellow makers. I’ve only been making things for about six years, but I’ve already won many awards for my work, several of them were pretty big awards, and one was “best of show” at Bladeshow west, where over a thousand makers from all over the world come to exhibit and sell their work, and compete in the different categories. My feather pattern chef knife won “best chef knife” and “best of show” and is the only chef knife to have ever won best in show at any Bladeshow, ever. I’m not trying to brag or anything, I myself was shocked and I thought they had made a mistake in calling my name by accident, it’s just rather unusual for someone who has been making for such a short time to win anything, much less a best of show. Many makers will never achieve that honor. I’m somewhat humbled by it. Call it imposter syndrome if you like, but I felt as if, “How can I deserve to win such a thing?”
I started making knives because I was unsure what to do with my life. About ten years ago I got very ill. Lots of strange and alarming symptoms with no obvious cause. I went to many doctors and specialists, and many, many tests with no real solid diagnosis, amid periods of being basically bed bound, sores all over my body, mouth full of sores and many other symptoms seemingly unrelated to each other, I thought I was dieing. I was unable to work, and very depressed, drinking alot, and it continued like that for a couple years. Until one day my girlfriend, Virginia, asked me, “Have you ever thought this might be from sun exposure?” She’s really good at noticing patterns in things. So I went on Google looking for anything that looked similar to what I was experiencing, and I found it. It was not good news,
it was something called porphyria. Then came the challenge of getting diagnosed.
This is a relatively rare where less than one in a million people have this so most of my doctors had never heard of it, or I’d get comments like “I think I heard about that in medical school” which let me tell you, isn’t very encouraging. The more important factor is that in order to order tests for something, doctors need codes in their system to order said tests. So it took awhile to get a real diagnosis. I was able, eventually to get diagnosed and it was, is, indeed porphyria. So, I would never be able to go in the sun again, even for a second. I was a structural welder. Which is a pretty physical trade, which is done almost exclusively outside in the sun. My career was effectively over. Adding to my depression, and the drinking. I had to find something to do with my life where I could use some of what I already knew and could do on my own, never having to work outside. After much pondering I decided to start making knives. I thought, “I know about working with metal, how hard can it be?” This was extremely presumptuous. Turned out that very little of my training was applicable and this is more of an art, than a job. It’s not just welding metal together. It metal and wood, and many other materials that I’d mostly never heard of, and most of the tools involved are things I had never used. But I was determined and I worked like never had before to become proficient at this. I built a shop, bought lots of tooling, woke up a 4:00am, before the sun comes up, and worked until dark. I did my best to learn new things and work to apply them in my work. It was slow at first, I went to classes with the American Bladesmith Society, all of which were targeted to beginners, which I was, and learned the basics. Then I appreciated under a mastersmith and that changed everything. Three months later I won best in show at Bladeshow West. All that said, this is still an art, more than a career, sometimes I go to a show and sell almost everything, other times nothing. Like any art, name recognition is important, and with only a short time doing this, even with the awards won, I’m not as well known as the folks who have been in the business for decades. So, sometimes I struggle a bit to sell my work, but I must say that it’s far more rewarding than any other work that I’ve ever done. The feeling of accomplishment after finishing a really nice knife is far greater than I have ever felt from making a perfect weld. That’s for sure.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Actually, not much of what I already knew helped me achieve in this business. 99% of what I do today are new skills that I’ve learned through hands-on doing. So, persistence, perseverance, and drive are important in anything one does. I think most people, including myself, get into new things with starry eyes and inflated hopes and dreams. Then, inevitably, reality rears it’s ugly head and one must not allow disappointment to overcome, and not lose sight of the goal. You have to keep on keeping on until you win. And even then you have to keep at it, keep on keeping on because there are ups and downs.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

When things don’t seem to be going my way, and I think of all the other people who do this and are much more successful than I am at this point. I just have to think about all the successful people that I know of, some of them millionaires, (not knife maker), they had many failures before the greater success that they achieved. One declared bankruptcy several times before hitting the mark. If he gave up after his fifth bankruptcy he wouldn’t be where he is today. I just thank God for the blessings that He has given me, and put my nose to the grinder, and keep forging on. Pardon the puns! But, it’s a matter of fighting against disappointment, and feelings of hopelessness and keep on going. If one doesn’t do that they are unlikely to get to the goal.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @t.j.knives
• Facebook: T.j. Morgan

Image Credits

Some photos of my work were taken by professional photographers Jim Cooper @sharpbycoop, and Jocelyn Frasier.