Sorry Peter, but that just does not sell! My educational
background is Monumental Sculpture, but the curriculum included a
lot of metal disciplines and one simply cannot graduate without
demonstrating high degree of technical mastery, even if major
emphasis was on art.
Wonderful work in that video. However, perhaps you missed a point I
made (or at least, I thought I did) in an earlier post in this
thread. The statements defining the intent and meaning of an MFA
degree most apply to those degree’s granted by university programs
here in the U.S. and to some degree, in Canada. Elsewhere, it’s more
variable. In the UK, some schools tend to use the American model to a
degree, but most are a blending of the old guild
system/apprenticeship models, or at least the thinking about what is
being trained and tested for. The university masters degrees found in
europe (and I assume, Russia) are much more oriented on technical
skills, while the U.S. programs are more aimed at the
aesthetic/design skills. Here in the U.S., attempts are made to
teach the techniques involved, and students are expected, especially
at the Bachelor’s level, more than at the graduate level, to
demostrate technical skills taught in the classes. But it’s nothing
like the level of technique expected in some european programs (and
in the old Russian schools, as you know.)
It’s useful, in trying to understand this difference, to recall the
origins of the university art school programs. In Europe (and Russia,
which follows similar tradition), the University programs were simply
an evolution of the old apprenticeship or trade school training, and
students are taught, and expected to master a wide array of technical
skills, as you say was required of you, and which you continue to
demonstrate in your jewelry. That training was, from the start,
intended to train people for a career as professional craftspeople
and artists.
In the U.S., however, the art school history is one originating in
the U.S. out of Victorian age thinking regarding fine arts. While
Universities taught professional skills in many fields, in the arts,
often the art school classes were more of an upper class dilletant
pursuit, followed by those with enough money they didn’t expect to
have to make a living with it. The result was less emphasis on
technique, and more emphasis on “ivory tower” thinking, aesthetic
theory, design debates, and all the other aspects of what artists
who might expect to sit around in their salons over tea discussing
their work with fellow artists, collectors, and critics.
Yes, I know, I’m greatly overstating, but simply put, the European
schools from the start, expected students to be training for a
career. The U.S programs never tried to do that. And in metals, in
particular, the history is even more unique. For the most part, there
were very few metals programs at all, anywhere in the U.S. Most of
them focused on silversmithing or pewter smithing or similar crafts,
largely coming from the arts and crafts movement at that time, NOT
jewelry work to any great degree. While the silversmiths did do
jewelry, from a technial standpoint, they were pretty much self
taught. There was virtually no academic or trade school training in
the U.S. in actual goldsmithing outside of “learn as you go” on the
job training very similar to how an old school apprentice learned.
After world war 2, a large number of returning soldiers took
advantage of the GI bill to go to school. Some of them wanted to go
to art school. So there was interest in starting metals programs. But
here in the U.S., there were few people able to teach it. Again, the
schools looked to the silversmithing realm, and imported european
silversmiths to teach metals here. The School for American Craftsmen
in Rochester held workshops and seminars for folks who’d go on to
teach around the country, and again, that training was in
silversmithing, mostly from one Danish silversmith who’s name I could
have told you five minutes ago, but has slipped my mind just now.
Figures. But from those few people (maybe a dozen), the university
programs in Metals got their start. Those people had students, many
of whom themselves went on to teach, and it’s snowballed. Many of
the younger current teachers don’t know the history of their own
craft here in the U.S., but that origin in the traditions of
silversmithing explains in large part, why skills and training in
goldsmithing in these programs, has always been lacking. Contrast
this with the skills shown by students of a number of significant
schools in the areas of hollow ware. Many of those students, on
earning their MFA’s in metals, when they worked in silver or pewter
Hollow ware, could hold their own quite well with anyone in the
world, and some of the more original techniques now common,
originated here in the U.S. One glaring example is found in the term
“anticlastic raising”. There are lots of nice young jewelers making
pretty neat jewelery using this term, who don’t actually know who
Heikii Seppa was, or seen his book, nor who know his original use of
the term referred to hollow ware scale work, not jewelry. Until
Michael Good in particular got hold of the methods and moved them
down in scale to exquisite jewelry work, it was a silversmiths
method.
Or consider techniques like Mokume-Gan. While known, sort of, in
Europe, it was rarely taught or used much. Here in the U.S., largely
spearheaded and taught by the Pijianowski’s at the University of
Michigan, who’s research into rediscovering lost (to the west)
japanese methods resulted in the technique being spread widely to
many U.S. schools. Most college juniors have done at least some work
with it. By now, it’s crossed the ocean again back to Europe, but
the main thrust of the rediscovery and popularization was right here,
in the U.S. university art school programs. Of course, familiarity is
one thing. Real skill is another. In general, those folks who really
have mastered the method, like Jim Binnion and a few others, it’s
taken them decades of work, experimentation, and research, to really
master it. In the trade, recognition of what it is even, isn’t
common, and any idea of how it’s actually done, is rarer still.
Where I work, my boss(s) and a few others will recognize it and know
the name, as well as where to find work made that way that they can
sell. But I think I’m the only one in the whole shop with any real
idea of how it’s actually done. And I didn’t get that from trade
experience.
And the spirit of innovation and emphasis on unique and creative
personal work in metals, while perhaps at the expense of technical
expertise, has not been without rewards. Students taught first to
think creatively, rather than learning to make certain things in
exactly the right way, sometimes come up with really new ideas.
Consider the work of Charles Lewton-Brain. I doubt, had he done all
his studies in, say, Germany, that he’d have been so encouraged to
explore some interesting ideas he had about a new way to shape metal.
We now call that fold forming. Originated right here (well, and in
Calgary where he now teaches). Good old North American innovation and
creative thinking from an exceptionally creative man.
Or consider an experience I had back in '78 while studying for a
time at Cranbrook. The whole class went to London to see metals and
jewelry done there. In one instance, at the Royal College of art, we
found students doing lots of design, with studio technicians
available to help, assist, and even (mostly for the grad students, I
think) do the work if students had a hard time of it. One of these
techs was busy explaining to us how he’d been working to make a
silver tray, and was expounding on how such a shallow form with a
large flat bottom, was one of the most difficult forms to make via
traditional hammering over stakes. We all kind of looked at each
other in amusement. You see, at Cranbrook in the 60s, Richard Thomas
(one of the finest liturgical silversmiths I’ve ever known, in
addition to being the long time teacher at Cranbrook, and who was,
by the way, almost entirely self taught) and his students had
developed a method they called “masonite die” forming. A silver sheet
was clamped between rigid layers of masonite, maybe with a metal lip
for a sharp edge if needed, which had a desired cutout in the dies.
With the dies holding the edge level and flat, the interior could
simply be sunk down with little trouble. Nothing warped, and a flat
bottom was simple to make. While we all know of the traditional
method, and probably could have done it, none of us would have
bothered to do it that way since we knew a much better and faster
way. When we explained this method to that tech, he wouldn’t hear of
it. No rocking of the traditional boat for him, even if our method
could do some things a hammer and stake could not, and do it in half
the time for the things the stake could do, while giving an equal or
better result. Again, the obvious contrast between the high technical
skill but adherence to tradition in the European school, versus
perhaps the less technical skill but greater innovation and perhaps,
creativity, from the U.S. school, was obvious.
Damn. Just looked at the clock. Time to stop my damn rambling
(something else I didn’t learn in the trade. Thanks Mom) and get to
bed. G’night all.
Peter
My respect isn’t granted by an