Who hasn’t seen Tee shirts emblazoned with sayings such as:“TOOL
FOOL”, bumper stickers with: “I BRAKE FORTOOLS”? How many times have
you as a jeweler, givenan encircled picture or catalog description of
a tool or machine with thenotation saying: “This is the one that I
want for my anniversary, wedding,birthday, holiday, etc”? Jewelers
fall into a very special category of unique individuals. Those on the
"outside" have a hard time coming up with gift ideasfor them. Flowers
won’t work with this crowd; candy leaves them cold, brandyisn’t the
answer, and diamonds?.they would only use them to make something
forsomeone else! No.the best way to show love or friendship to this
group is togive them a tool. These folks still cherishtheir very
first good tool, andprobably still use it every day. In my case, I
still have tools given to me bymy father over sixty years ago, and
even though I don’t use them much anymore,as our interests diverged,
I still fondle them with reverence. Good tools freecreativity, while
poor tools limit it. I have been making tools for jewelers and
metalsmiths formore than twenty years, and for the longest time
didn’t recognize that my appreciationfortools and machinery was
shared by others. This was brought home to me when I shipped a tool
to a customer and it happened to arrive on her birthday, alongwith a
box of long-stemmed roses from her brother, and a package from
herhusband. As she related this story to me later, she confessed that
she opened minefirst. After all, the piece that she was working on
needed the tool to finishit, and her husband would get to see her
open his gift to her. Now, this isrationalization of the first order.
For the past 20 years, I have been trying to figure out howto
describe to others what it is that I do. I realize now that I occupy
a verysmall niche within the universe circumscribed by the field of
jewelry. Whilesome would say that I am an insignificant piece of the
larger puzzle, I feelthat I participate in making objects of beauty.
That’s good enough for me. What I do is create jewelry for jewelers.
Lee Marshall