After I replied to you, I wondered the same thing. That designer probably didn’t use the sandpaper method!
Not trying to ignite any controversy at all. I was addressing your comment using that word because i assumed that you were seeing my post as the initial instigator.
I am glad that you took the time to write and I think that your answer is well expressed.
I have been on Orchid for a long time and over the years have seen the recurring (what I see as) critical stance on Art Jewelry. I’m sure that you can find these threads if you search the archives. Those conversations triggered my response to the phrase “over priced”.
I have been a maker of jewelry, both “fine” and “art”, for well over 30 years and have sold work in that price range (made of sterling, bronze, gold, porcupine quills, plastic and rattlesnake rattles) that was not based on intrinsic value.
I also teach workshops and classes around the country, including a surface development class. That class is all about playing, exploring surface and developing a new surface vocabulary. I demonstrate a surface very similar to what I see pictured in your post and I use it extensively in my own work. It is a fused surface with filings melted into the parent metal. This process can be used on flat sheet or even on forms like tube—and even on soldered objects, although this can be dicey.
Offering information in the classroom situation is one thing, but I admit to getting riled when I see a question such as the one that you posed , which is why I suggested that you contact the maker, which you did. Like many makers who have had work out in the public for years I have had the occasional situation where someone has come a little too close, in my eyes, to what it is that I make. My “brand” for lack of a better word. While I have no legal claim or defense to that “brand”, it still rankles. I’ve even had someone teach a class at a museum in D.C. or Baltimore on dissecting and replicating the work of several makers with the stated goal of paying “homage” to these makers while learning how they do what they do. Participants would leave the class with a completed piece, the implication being that you could have a DIY version of the work that you were a fan of. Just seemed wrong to me and to others whose names were listed in the class description.
I am sorry if you saw my posts as aggressive or inflammatory or even simply as stirring the pot. But I stand by my posts and will continue to voice concern over instances that I see as troubling.
Take care,
Andy
4 Likes
I’m beyond grateful that you’ve managed to keep a civil conversation with me, due to the fact that arguments can get pretty heated on an online forum when the users are mostly anonymous strangers. Thank you for taking the time to read my reply and respond to it while being thoughtful. I appreciate that. I should not have used the term “over-priced” considering the pieces are made by my idol in this industry and I adore the design. That was my first mistake.
As for your exposure and immersion in the industry, I am extremely humbled to receive advice from someone as knowledgeable as you. We may not agree on certain things, but it certainly excites me to be able to converse with such an experience jeweler and educator. I hope that one day we cross paths. I would be delighted to learn from you. I’m just shy of 23 and I have much to learn in this world. As for being kind enough to share the method of how this surface is produced, you didn’t have to do that, but I thank you anyways. I don’t intend to copy, but merely incorporate that method into my own, while maintaining the original elements of my style. You say the surface is formed by fusing shavings to the surface. You can refrain from answering this question if you’d like, and I would respect that, but since you’ve revealed the method, the floodgates are open and I’m driven by curiosity to ask. Would you heat the main piece to a certain temperate and then scatter small filings over the surface or would you have a bowl of filings, heat that, and throw your piece in? I’m extremely intrigued. I would be extremely grateful if you shared more information with me. I would not expect you to, though. You’ve earned your knowledge and experience.
As for an apology, I don’t want one. You gave me a well thought-out answer and had a discussion with a young kid like me, and I am extremely happy about that. We may have a disagreement on certain things, but we share the same passion and it’s a privilege to speak to you.
Regards and best wishes,
Austin
1 Like
Well, I couldn’t resist saying something. Now, you’re telling me if I run the same background on my piece as someone else that’s called copying? Come now. If all you successful artists that can’t afford a trip to England will check the Museum of Art you will find all of your work has already been done at some point in time over the thousands of years. There is nothing new out there, someone has done it in some point in time. If you don’t want to share your secrets don’t. I hope no one would bother taking your classes just to learn that a bunch of information that you have taught, you resent them using at a later time.
Writing an artist to get permission to use their background is just to silly, if the artist is wise he’ll be happy someone noticed his work. The young man that is looking for the background can just work with a bunch of test surfaces in his Roller Mill and most likely find something very close without to much trouble. He can write to one of the men who make Texture Hammers, they have all sorts of ideas that they are willing to share. That’s all folks.
1 Like
I’m not telling you anything at all, nor do I think that any of this is silly.
I think that you may have missed the point. I didn’t call the initial poster a thief, but I did challenge him as to the possible appropriation of what might be another maker’s signature style.
My aim in teaching any class is to help students develop their own vocabulary and my expectation (not always met) is that they will adapt the process that I teach to their own way of working. I am very up front about that.
If you chose to sign up for a class or a workshop with me you may indeed walk away with something new. But you will rarely learn a recipe.
At any rate, if you or any one else doesn’t wish to take my classes then that’s fine. I enjoy teaching and I believe that those who take my classes are satisfied.
And if you are angry (evidenced by what I read as the chastising tone of your post) that I challenged this young man, then that is fine as well. But you may wish to read more carefully in the future…
Take care,
Andy
Just a second comment, because the jewelry shapes in the photograph are fully dimensional and not flat, it would, to my thinking be virtually impossible to mechanically apply the surface unless it’s tumbled… the texture expended to the bead prongs, too.
Tumbling sort of half rounds any high surface issues and flattens them. Austin’s image didn’t indicate that to me. It also looks like the stones were cast in place, being nothing is polished… It’s all rough.
And lastly, I’ve created surfaces that are shortcuts over traditional polishing. I can’t imagine that the designer would do anything that required that much thinking or hand craft … It’s more a process or series after rough casting to make the surface uniformly irregular.
If you have ever done industrial scale chemical milling work (I’ve had a couple of cool architectural commissions) and prepared small coupons (samples of same material including taking into account the direction of the metals crystallization as it cools and temperature of the soup and time on the soup) to predict what you’re going to get after you pull it out of the chemical soup aka solution…
To me, the texture looked somewhat familiar to my chem milling samples in a-36 mild steel in sulfuric, hydrochloric and another acid i don’t recall at 140F. That texture captured in my memory is why I’m revisiting my own post on the challenge.
The admired designer also might have created a custom alloy of his silver. It’s 925 silver, but what’s the other 075? To be 925, it isn’t necessary to be CU as the remainder. If it’s cast, it doesn’t have to be post processed polished, etc. If he selected a metal that was vulnerable to a specific acidic solution… then the uniformity of the micro pitting would be similar. Certain pickles - like paracetic acid rip into the surface of brasses. Depletion gilding. Maybe it’s special hard pickle at a boil, who knows.
If the designer started with a rough casting in a special alloy, and then chemically subtracted another metal from the surface very quickly… then oxidize the heck out of it, well, there you have it. pretty nifty trick, and easy with a really good ventilation system or technical fabrication specialist house.
It’s my gut feeling that a bunch of backside l, post casting special labor is no where in the process. It’s batch processed, not hand anything.
But unless you are a bit of a mad chemist at heart, it’s not even on the radar.
I’ll have to dig up my old chem milling coupons, they were a total unexpected shock and vewy intewesting. The texture was driven by how the metal flowed. It was good for me that all the metal in the initial fabrication process had been selected / oriented in the preferred textural axis that i had wanted.
This Austin challenge makes me want to become a MSDS comparison reader again.
A metal and technical art geek who became jeweler…Eileen
Antiquitiez
May 9 |
Well, I couldn’t resist saying something. Now, you’re telling me if I run the same background on my piece as someone else that’s called copying? Come now. If all you successful artists that can’t afford a trip to England will check the Museum of Art you will find all of your work has already been done at some point in time over the thousands of years. There is nothing new out there, someone has done it in some point in time. If you don’t want to share your secrets don’t. I hope no one would bother taking your classes just to learn that a bunch of information that you have taught, you resent them using at a later time.
Writing an artist to get permission to use their background is just to silly, if the artist is wise he’ll be happy someone noticed his work. The young man that is looking for the background can just work with a bunch of test surfaces in his Roller Mill and most likely find something very close without to much trouble. He can write to one of the men who make Texture Hammers, they have all sorts of ideas that they are willing to share. That’s all folks.
Visit Topic or reply to this email to respond.
Brought to you by:
You are receiving this because you enabled mailing list mode.
To unsubscribe from these emails, click here.
1 Like
Andy,
i’d take your class if it was close by. You have an awesome creative skill set. Your posts respectfully speak eloquently for themselves.
Eileen
andy_c
May 9 |
I’m not telling you anything at all, nor do I think that any of this is silly.
I think that you may have missed the point. I didn’t call the initial poster a thief, but I did challenge him as to the possible appropriation of what might be another maker’s signature style.
My aim in teaching any class is to help students develop their own vocabulary and my expectation (not always met) is that they will adapt the process that I teach to their own way of working. I am very up front about that.
If you chose to sign up for a class or a workshop with me you may indeed walk away with something new. But you will rarely learn a recipe.
At any rate, if you or any one else doesn’t wish to take my classes then that’s fine. I enjoy teaching and I believe that those who take my classes are satisfied.
And if you are angry (evidenced by what I read as the chastising tone of your post) that I challenged this young man, then that is fine as well. But you may wish to read more carefully in the future…
Take care,
Andy
Visit Topic or reply to this email to respond.
Brought to you by:
You are receiving this because you enabled mailing list mode.
To unsubscribe from these emails, click here.
You are more than welcome, Austin.
I first coat the object with paste flux and then sift (with a screen) or simply drizzle the filings on. Then I dry it slowly/gently with the torch and continue heating with a bushy flame until the filings melt partially into the surface. It is simply fusing or welding. I then file the surface down a bit or—if it’s flat stock— I gently roll the surface a bit. It’s amazing that one technique can yield such wildly different results and carry different information depending on how it is post-processed.
A colleague briefly demonstrated how she did it, years ago. It was very much in line with the way that I was working and was a minor aspect of what she made and then I ran with it. I changed a few things and learned how to control the heat so that I could create the surface on already formed things like tube, domes,wire, forgings and castings. It’s all about heating.
And please take whatever anyone tells you—including me—with a grain of salt. I was told that forms would collapse and that soldered elements would fail, which is true—if you don’t use the heat judiciously. But I wouldn’t have discovered that what is possible if I had taken the warnings to heart. Check out “Seymour’s Cup” on the Assorted Pieces tab under Custom on my website. That surface was fused on after the cup was raised.
I am curious as to what we are in disagreement about….
Take care.
1 Like
BTW. Have you checked out The Creative Side Jewelry Academy on Ben White Road in Austin? Worth a look…
Again, I greatly appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to share some wisdom with me! I’m always eager to learn new methods to create jewelry and ways I can improve my techniques! My only question is that another user commented about how the surface may be achieved differently (or not). Would it be possible that it’s not a silver/copper alloy, and some other metal alloyed silver that reacts to an acidic solution, as user eileenfloron suggested? It does look like a corroded surface, but yet the shavings method also seems likely. What are your thoughts?
I don’t really know. But I think you may be over complicating it. As u said, Occam’s Razor.
Please excuse any typos-- curse my clumsy digits…
Good afternoon once again andy_c! I put some work in today on the bench and I come back with some results. I decided to attempt the method you suggested the other day on a flat surface. For a first time, I don’t think it turned out too terribly. It wasn’t a consistent surface, some areas were higher than others, and the heat from my torch slightly deformed the sheet, but it’s not dreadful. I’ll share with you how I attempted it. I was on a bit of a time crunch, so the results were slightly rushed.
I first made an ingot out of sterling and rolled it out and annealed it multiple times until I found a thickness that I was happy with. I then took another ingot that I had made and filed it over a plastic cup to catch a goodly amount of filings. After that, I mixed some water with some Dandix, non-flouride silver solder flux to create a moist paste to spread on the sterling sheet. After I coated it, I tried to sprinkle the silver filings as evenly over the surface as I could. Once covered, I put the sheet on a raised, mesh grate so I could heat it from the bottom and the top. I used a low, bushy flame to heat it very slowly, and after about 3-4 minutes, the piece became fairly cherry red and it looked as if a good amount of the filings were fusing. I let it air cool for about 2 minutes, quenched it in the pickler, and let it sit in there for a brief few minutes. I then buffed it slightly with tripoli and rouge, put it in the ultrasonic, and finally steamed it. Lastly, I dipped a cotton swap in some Vigor silver oxidized, and got the black patina.
As for my feelings on the results, they’re mixed. The surface is not as uniform as I had hoped, even though this surface is not supposed to be uniform at all, yet I still wanted some uniformity. It’s sort of contradictory. Either way, that was my error, because I probably didn’t spread the filings evenly enough before fusing. Perhaps it should have been covered with less filings, or they should have been more spread out, I don’t know. I then attempted it on a ring, and that failed miserably. I will not be sharing those results, hahaha. Anyways, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I also would like to invite others to attempt this surface manipulation and share your results.
Austin,
Maybe, . . . thinking about what you accomplished with the fusing… It might be worth a try to see if you could pepper the surface of a dimensional wax you want to cast with warm to hot, fine size silver filings. They would lock into the surface end then be captured by the investment. They would survive burnout and should fuse to the cast silver. When you cast, they would leave an irregular texture you are interested in.
I would concentrate on figuring out how to accomplish what texture was captured in the designers ring with the set orange/red stones. The ring was textured even in the prongs, as i recall.
Try using a sifter or small strainer that’s used for baking or cooking. It might be applied with something slightly sticky on your finger tips or a tool onto a slightly warm ring wax on. a mandrel so as to not deform the ring shape. Who knows, but its sure got my analytical brain working.
Again, there’s some trick to frying the look that isn’t that much work… (or rocket science, as i like to say).
Eileen
That’s not a bad idea at all. I’ll have to try that next time I do some lost-wax casting. Honestly, at this point, it’s simply a matter of trial and error. I have to experiment over and over until I find my preferred method. I really like your idea and I’ll be applying it to my next session when I find the time.