Jewelry program or advice on education

Jewelry Discussion
41 
here in the US at least the main focus of the colleges and
universities appears to be making

raising money to keep the faculty and administration employed.

Likely the main question asked - how to break into the jewelry
business - has been answered as well as can be. But the larger,
philosophical questions about the role of education are intriguing,
still. Jim’s quote above is interesting in the context of a
university (don’t remember the name or the real details, but it’s
true) that “needed” to raise tuition because they had “only” $900
milliion in their fund.

I think the biggest problem with this discussion is the desire to
compare apples to oranges. There are many fields in science,
engineering and some humanities that are comparatively straighforward

  • “Here’s yer knowlege, go out and do something with it.” Art isn’t
    like that at all, and when you start calling jewelry “art” then you
    have an even bigger problem. What is art? How do you teach art? Where
    do you start? It’s just too n= ebulous to pin it down, and then you
    get people who want to teach some lofty idealistic tilts to it that
    have no real use in the real world. “Did you hear the jewelry
    instructor was asked to resign? Yeah, he sold a piece…” sort
    of stuff. Factor in the reality that “art jewelry” in America is
    pretty stagnant and a tough sell and you’ve got a boatload of
    problems in the real world. I see it firsthand ~all~ the time. 4 and
    6 year Art College jewelry program graduates who don’t know how to
    polish or set a stone. I’m in touch with those people and programs,
    I’m not making this up.

In conclusion I’d just say you (all) need to choose your battles. If
you want to get an MFA for whatever reasons, then good for you - if
you’re lucky you’ll get a taste of making jewelry, too. If you want
to be a professional jeweler (even an “art” jeweler), then you’re
going to need to do things and go places that teach/train you much
more than most art colleges are capable of doing, and just be aware
of that. And not to pound away at it, but ANYBODY can make a piece of
jewelry - it’s making jewelry that people want to buy that’s the
tricky part, don’t you know…

42 
The masters were out of a university environment. I did very well
and had too much fun. First day on a real job and I realised I knew
nothing before lunch. To learn bench skills a bench is really
handy, a lot of drone work part of the equation..

This is going to sound funny at first, but bear with me…

I speak a bit of Italian, and now I’ve been truly studying it
seriously for around 6 months. The main thing I’ve been struck by is
that in some ways nobody can teach it to you - meaning that there’s
no way to just inject it into your brain and walk out an Italian
speaker. You have to do the work, and nobody can do it for you.
Memorization, drills, irregular verbs, grammar, and how it all fits
together to become a language, and not just a handful of words.

Meaning that sure, you can take a class that teaches you how to do
Japanese inlay into eggshells, but if you don’t know how to make a
basket setting and a ringshank and all of the other 25,000 basic
tasks that jewelers are supposed to know then you are only 1/2 way
(or less) there. The only way to do that is to learn your chops -
sit down at a bench and do it for 5 years or so. And yes, of course
you need some training to gain the privilege of sitting at the bench
to begin with - that’s the hard part, really. There aren’t really
any shortcuts, just lots of hard work…

Sure, I started out in Italian, in Italy where I had to speak Italian
to be understood at all, with keywords: Hungry! Eat! Bathroom! Good!
On some level that is “Speaking Italian” just as soldering a loop on
an old coin is “Making Jewelry”. But you (I would hope) want to be
able to say, “What time is lunch, and what are we having today?”
Which is more difficult than it might seem to the casual
glance…Jewelry is a lot like that, too.

43 
...inclined to believe that if one has a degree and manages to
actually become an artist it is in spite of having the degree...

I know what you’re getting at - but it’s also the type of thing we
expect from Sarah Palin. The “We ain’t gonna let no experts tell us
how to do heart surgery!”

It’s become fashionable to disparage education - a reverse snobbery.

I actually don’t personally know any good artists who haven’t taken
a degree course. They may not have finished the course but they ll
went to college.

44

Your path in life is just that, ‘your’ path. You must start walking.
If you’re concerned about what is the correct first step, don’t be,
it doesn’t matter, you will correct your course as you need. Its a
long path.

Being a ‘jeweler’ is not something that can be bestowed upon you. It
is not external bits that come in a rolled up parchment, whoever the
issuer. It is what you make yourself become. You need to get your
hands dirty and you need to find your own way of dealing with those
who will sneer at your dirty hands, for surely someone will.

You apparently are close to Metalwerx. Hell, I’d start there. I’ve
never been but judging from the catalogs I get, they offer a wide
and changing array. If you want to learn to do things and not just
’talk’ about doing things, I think the yellowbrick road is at your
door step. And you don’t even have to kill a witch.

45

Hi Tony,

I actually don't personally know any good artists who haven't
taken a degree course. They may not have finished the course but
they ll went to college.

Plenty of excellent artists haven’t taken degree courses. I work in
an art store and the quality of artists that pass through the doors
on a daily basis is inspirational.

Talking of history a lot of the famous artists didn’t have a degree.

You can develop a talent, but the talent has to be there in the
first place, no amount of education is going to create talent.

Regards Charles A.

46

As others have said, you cannot beat workshop experience, get to a
bench and get your hands working. I left education at the age of 15
and entered a goldsmith workshop as an apprentice. I have never been
to college in my life, I have no degrees or any qualification
paperwork. But I have plenty of workshop and benchwork experience
and also have gained some trade recognition in the UK by gaining a
Fellowship of The Institute of Professional Goldsmiths. See my work
on the Orchid Gallery and see what can be achieved via trade only
training.

Peace and good health to all
James Miller FIPG.

47

I actually don’t personally know any good artists who haven’t taken a
degree course. They may not have finished the course but they ll went
to college.

And what is your definition of a ‘good artist’ ?

We should take a survey from our list of members. I think the results
would be fascinating.

MM

48 
It's become fashionable to disparage education - a reverse
snobbery.

This isn’t really pointed at Tony, or his quote, above, though it is
an interesting quote…

I’d like to tell the story of what happened just yesterday, right in
line with some portion of this topic. We have a couple of (old)
friends - he is a fairly well-known art-metal man, not really
jewelry so much but metal.

She is downright renowned and I’d guess most people here know her
name, though I’m not going to say because this isn’t personal. They
are both in education - Jack is in charge of the entire metals
program at an art college. He just knocked on our door because he
needed to talk. There are things going on that aren’t really
important here that make him think that the college might drop the
entire metals program, leaving him hanging out to dry. They would
still give him a job, but not the metals program which he built from
the ground up, literally. BTW, he is our age, not far from 60, and I
don’t actually know how long he’s been in metals but it’s certainly
some decades. His real concern was, “If this happens, what do I do
with myself?” Understand that we are friends, and what I’m about to
say, below, doesn’t mean we had confict, it’s just my own thoughts.

There was a point when I said, “Well, why don’t you just come up
with with some pieces or a line, and sell them for a living?” After
all, he has the skills… He looked at me as though I’d just told
him the sky was blue. Here’s a man who’s made and taught metals for
30 or 40 years who really has never sold enough work to support
himself with it (as he’s also discussed with me before - the
diffficulties of making it in his arena). I said some of the things
I’ve also said here - that you need to touch people with your work,
and if they are walking out of a venue without buying your work it’s
YOUR fault, not theirs, etc., etc. and he looked at me like a first
year student being told something for the first time. Just an
entirely different point of view than anybody else I know in this
business. I know that he has it, it’s just an eye-opener when you’re
having a conversation, and it’s so prominent. What he’s always done
is essentially “Play” - toy around with stuff, make strange, freaky
and/or useless pieces that people ooh and ahh about at gallery
shows, and then take home his teacher’s paycheck. The entire concept
of making a living from designing, manufacturing and selling your
work is foreign to him. Well, he knows it intellectually, of course,
but not anything like a way of life. He’s a wonderful craftsman and
a fine artist, he just has not a clue about how to use his abilities
to make a living with them.

No real point here - I just thought it was an interesting real-world
event and story that really shows the disconnect there can be
between the academic world and real life, at times.

49 
I know what you're getting at - but it's also the type of thing we
expect from Sarah Palin. The "We ain't gonna let no experts tell
us how to do heart surgery!"

I find that to be down right insulting to me and not at all relevant
to what I said.

It's become fashionable to disparage education - a reverse
snobbery.

I am all for education, including higher education. But art
education in America has almost totally abandoned teaching the
foundation and techniques of making art and instead focuses on
concept. Learning how to tell others what one meant to be
communicated by ones unskilled attempt at an artwork during classroom
critiques. Who cares if the student knows how to saw, solder, file,
draw, paint etc. if they can write a good artist statement and babble
on in art speak. If I was going to have heart surgery I sure as hell
would want my surgeon to have a lot of both fundamental and advanced
training in the techniques of surgery not just to be able to discuss
the concept of it in a post mortum critique.

I actually don't personally know any good artists who haven't
taken a degree course. They may not have finished the course but
they ll went to college.

While I don’t personally know them, Auguste Rodin, Vincent Van Gogh,
Frida Kahllo just to name a few did not attend art college.
Education is achieved by the student not the school and can be gained
by any one who puts the time and effort into gaining that education.
Schools have no monopoly on education.

My last “real” job was as a Research Engineer for a Silicon Valley
research and development company. If you went to the HR department
and asked for the education requirements for that job it would be a
MSEE, I don’t even have a high school diploma! I got a GED when I
joined the Navy. Between the Navy training in electronics and my own
self education I worked my way into that job as a Research Engineer.
Would it have been easier to do my job if I had a MSEE, probably. But
attending a college does not a good engineer or artist make. It is
the individual, their drive and desire that makes for a good
practitioner in a career field not what kind or how much school they
have had.

Jim

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

50 
It's become fashionable to disparage education - a reverse
snobbery. I actually don't personally know any good artists who
haven't taken a degree course. They may not have finished the
course but they ll went to college.

Education and artist are in the same relationship to each other as
lapidary and rough diamond. It takes a skilled diamond cutter to make
brilliant out of rough diamond, but diamond has to be there first.
The reason for reverse snobbery is that “gem cutting factories” have
been producing a lot of “fakes” recently. No amount of titles and
diplomas is a substitute for the ability to make something.

Leonid Surpin

51 
Education and artist are in the same relationship to each other as
lapidary and rough diamond. It takes a skilled diamond cutter to
make brilliant out of rough diamond, but diamond has to be there
first.

Funny you should mention diamond cutters. I met one at an open day
at the institution, where I’m honing skills.

He was a diamond sorter and cutter with 20 years experience, no
formal training at all, all on the job training.

Regards Charles A.

52

Hi John,

I'd like to tell the story... He's a wonderful craftsman and a fine
artist, he just has not a clue about how to use his abilities to
make a living with them.

This is an interesting story, and it rings true with my situation,
not from my point of view, but the point of view of my spouse.

The background, my spouse is an A+B=C kind of person… work, get
married, have children, stop work, husband does a “normal” high
paying job, the children grow up, then we die… comfort zone
thinking.

I have been making blades and playing with steel for many, many
years, as a hobby, and getting a little pocket money here and there.
I was working in IT, at the time, and getting paid a hideous amount
for practically doing nothing (imo), the money was paying for what I
knew, not what I did (did I feel guilty… a little). Eventually I
was retrenched, and paid out. I was left unemployed, and too old to
find another job within the computer industry.

I took a risk, and started to make and sell collector knives. This
was fine for me, but as it was not the “standard” thing to do, my
wife had a hard time of it… until one day.

Me: Cool I just sold a [small] knife for $250 :slight_smile:
Wife: Really?.. You know(?)… you could make money out of this.

Sometimes doing something outside of a comfort zone is too scary to
even contemplate, and sometimes it takes a good friend (like you are
to your neighbor) to open minds to the possibility of more.

Regards Charles A.

P.S. A there’s always a flip side. My Dad, a toolmaker and a highly
skilled machinist in his day, took a look at one of my damascus
blades. “You know Charlie?”, said my Dad. “With a little emery you
could take out those marks”. Some days you win, some days you can’t
win :wink:

53

The jewelry industry, unlike many others, is much more result
oriented rather than concerned about what degree or certificate
you’ve earned. In my experience in the trade, what you could do
behind the bench was far more important than any degree you had.

I think most bench jeweler positions I had involved a “bench-test” of
some kind before I was hired. If not, the quality of the finished
product and time it took to accomplish it would either let you keep
your job or end it. I have a jeweler friend who employed a very
talented classically trained German goldsmith to execute his custom
work in his shop. He did great work, but because he worked so
slowly, and could never accurately estimate how much time he would
need to finish a particular job, he was finally fired. My friend, his
boss, could simply not make a profit with the German jeweler. The
slowness of his work was not really the issue. The problem was that
the time the jeweler quoted (which the owner put into the quoted
price to the customer) was far lower than the time the jeweler
actually needed to finish the job. No profit for the owner, so the
German jeweler had to be replaced. I know another grad. student with
an 8 yr. Masters Degree in Metalsmithing, who confided in me that she
had never made a ring, carved a wax, or even fabricated any stock
while in school. However, she also told me her graduate studies
focused much time on conceptual processes and discussion. Not to
disparage university programs, as they are creative powerhouses full
of many creative metals techniques and processes. Do they teach
toward somehow making a living with those learned skills after you
graduate? Not so much.

I would say that true creativity, an inquisitive mind, hard work,
patience, and an entrepreneurial spirit will go much farther today
than a formal degree.

Jay Whaley

54 
I left education at the age of 15 and entered a goldsmith workshop
as an apprentice. I have never been to college in my life, I have
no degrees or any qualification paperwork.

Has also been “I don’t know any good artists who… It’s reverse
snobbery, etc…”

Unlike James, I took one semester of university jewelry. She said I
might come to something if I ever learned how to design, which she
knew little, if anything, about. Or if she did, she sure didn’t teach
it to us. Two years later people were asking for my work and buying
it like candy, as I worked in a real shop. Whether I’m a good
“artist” or even an artist at all isn’t something I think about, but
that I am successful is of no doubt. When this topic was going round
and round a year ago I said it, and I’ll say it again because it’s
true - the school of goldsmithing is goldsmithing itself. Just as in
the old days, knowlege is passed from father to son, mentor to
student, on and on. ANY school puts out apprentices, even the great
ones. Oh, I also dabble in paint, wood, stone, steel, ceramics,
enamels and whatnot on occasion. Not to mention business, a bit of
engineering at times and what have you. Some people need to have a
classroom - many people have told me that they do, in fact. But
that’s only some people.

Oh, and by the way, Jim B. was being modest about his own story. His
previous work wasn’t just “a research guy”, it was a much higher
level than he lets on… Learning is out there for all to find, if
they but look… Assume is spelled ass-u-me…

55 
It's become fashionable to disparage education - a reverse
snobbery.

Yes it has. That is beacause so much of what passes for education is
a sham. Way too much of our formal education is an overpriced vainity
that lacks rigor or results. Some is still excellent, some is OK, but
too much of it is a waste of time. And why shouldn’t someone who has
excelled without formal education or (dispite it) not be proud of
what they have accomplished? Three of my children have completed
University degrees. One was a terrible rip-off (English major at SUNY
Fredonia)One was excellent and rigorous resulting in the beginning of
a very promising career (Mechanical Engineering, Bucknell) The third
was apprently OK, (Physics, University of Buffalo)This idea that a
college education is a requirement for a good life is much like the
idea that you need a big diamond to be happily married. One is good
for educators and the othe is good for jewelers.

I actually don't personally know any good artists who haven't
taken a degree course. They may not have finished the course but
they ll went to college.

On the planet where I live about half the good artists have no
formal training. I would put that estimate higher for successful
jewelers. I also know a lot of art school graduates who work in the
construction industry and other non-art related fields. And since I
live very near a well known art school, Alfred University, I hear a
lot of grads ask, “now what am I going to do?”

Stephen Walker

56 
It's become fashionable to disparage education - a reverse
snobbery.

Yes it has. That is beacause so much of what passes for education is
a sham. Way too much of our formal education is an overpriced vainity
that lacks rigor or results. Some is still excellent, some is OK, but
too much of it is a waste of time. And why shouldn’t someone who has
excelled without formal education or (dispite it) not be proud of
what they have accomplished? Three of my children have completed
University degrees. One was a terrible rip-off (English major at SUNY
Fredonia)One was excellent and rigorous resulting in the beginning of
a very promising career (Mechanical Engineering, Bucknell) The third
was apprently OK, (Physics, University of Buffalo)This idea that a
college education is a requirement for a good life is much like the
idea that you need a big diamond to be happily married. One is good
for educators and the othe is good for jewelers.

I actually don't personally know any good artists who haven't
taken a degree course. They may not have finished the course but
they ll went to college.

On the planet where I live about half the good artists have no
formal training. I would put that estimate higher for successful
jewelers. I also know a lot of art school graduates who work in the
construction industry and other non-art related fields. And since I
live very near a well known art school, Alfred University, I hear a
lot of grads ask, “now what am I going to do?”

Stephen Walker

57 
The jewelry industry, unlike many others, is much more result
oriented rather than concerned about what degree or certificate
you've earned. In my experience in the trade, what you could do
behind the bench was far more important than any degree you had.

That has been my experience as well.

I would say that true creativity, an inquisitive mind, hard work,
patience, and an entrepreneurial spirit will go much farther today
than a formal degree.

True, but…

Everyone’s path is different. Some people will go to college no
matter what, because that’s what’s expected in their family. Some
people need more time than others to develop and mature as artists/
independent studio professionals.

Each of us can recommend a specific path for someone who gives us a
very specific career goal. But outside of that, we’re all right.

Universities, in general, do not do a good job of preparing
metalsmiths for a money making career, the student will need to do
more, over and above their degree, to be a success.

Trade schools, in general, do a better job of preparing people for
working in the industry.

And there are many paths to the same place, as many of us on this
list are a testament too.

Elaine
http://www.CreativeTextureTools.com

58

I apologize if your were insulted by my post.

Nevertheless I’ll stick with my primary thought. That education (a
"leading out") is very different from training.

Trying to disguise one as the other does a disservice to
craftspeople and artists.

I take your point about surgeons. I wouldn’t want to have anything
done by a person who didn’t have a background in both theory and
practical.

We’ve all seen great pieces of concept work that were impracticable
or fell to pieces - and the phenomenon of skillful work wasted on
run-of-the-mill objects is familiar to us all. I have a couple of
great paintings done by young artists, now very well known (trust
your tastes and buy from students) that have major conservation
problems only 20 years after they were made because the theory of
paint, canvas and brush was missing.

If all you want to do is make a living at this craft then you just
need bench skills. If you want to be an artist you need bench and
design skills - and an ounce of madness, a scruple of humor and an
assortment of friends.

59

Well, the Orchid Gods may either want to put this in a new thread or
not post it at all, that’s in the Gods’ hands, as usual. Seems like
a good place to put a movie recommendation/review that relates
somewhat to this topic. I had this saved on Netflix, and then a
sculptor friend also went out of his way to recommend it, too.

“(untitled)” That’s the exact title, with the parentheses - is about
the art world. On the face of it you could call it a spoof of the
"white canvas on white wall" sort of art, and that it is. If you
think about it, it has much more to say about the nature of art and
the art business than simply that, though. It’s a bit obscure and I
wouldn’t call it a perfect movie, but we enjoyed it. Technically
probably a comedy, but not really a “HAHA” comedy, just humorous.
Thought provoking…

60 
We've all seen great pieces of concept work that were
impracticable or fell to pieces - and the phenomenon of skillful
work wasted on run-of-the-mill objects is familiar to us all.

I simply cannot believe my eyes. Did you really mean that ? Let me
repeat it " the phenomenon of skillful work wasted on run-of-the-mill
objects ".

So you believe that craftsmanship only belongs on what you call
“concept work”? Wow! That what I call REAL SNOBBERY.

Leonid Surpin