So why do you call it a conspiracy? It sounds totally
LOL! Thank you all for your advice-- much is now clarified…
In reply I offer that jewelry design-for-production, and domestic
manufacturing of same is forever fraught with challenges that seem
rather backward for such a technologically advanced country. Perhaps
it’s a reflection of our apparent domestic market’s taste for
‘perceived value’ over profound passion-- passionate design powers
advancements in available technique (as opposed to vice-versa),
while reliance on the safety of tired forms tends to stifle
technical progress.
One need only to look to Vincenza, where passion for design creates
an inventive approach to materials that allows daring, bold strokes
of inventiveness: Techniques for mechanization, hollow-worked
components, fibers, filaments, etc. Domestically our production ethic
is centered on ‘perceived value’ and often seems mired in rehashing
antiquity-- hardly fertile ground for technical progress.
Those of us committed to remaining ‘closely held’ and keeping our
crews cared for as co-partners, face on one side factories overseas
with whole villages of help at .70 cents/day, enabling impossible
manual fabrication befitting some Muglai emperor, while on the other
side mass-machine mechanical monstrosities spew out meticulous parts
for mass consumption.
None of this is necessarily a problem for artisan designers, for
there remain plenty of inventive tricks to employ in service of our
most impossible-sounding design ideas–But the cutting edge of
creativity has long left our shores, or so it appears to this
artisan-designer. Hats off to the Italians, where metal molds,
etched clad hollow components, electroforming, etc. etc. are common
tools employed in the pursuit of passionate design progress, while
we here remain utterly deprived of such options lest we learn
Italian and become expatriates.
Conspiracy? Maybe a bit of an extreme term, but certainly old-school
and stodgy-- at least in my experience, with a seeming insistence on
remaining so, decade after decade. Consider the hearsay that the one
domestic production electroforming outfit remaining, actually
purchased a used set-up at auction for the sole purpose of keeping
it off the market in order to keep their niche cornered-- That would
demonstrate the value of the system, yet for the most part
rubber-mold castings remain the only production option for the
masses around here…
We are grateful to Castaldo, and the fabulous castings made from
their amazing rubber molds-- certainly a great boon to us all-- but
castings from rubber are certainly not castings from metal, and
neither of these are an electroform–
If we wish to be able to remain domestic and local in the production
of progressive designs, suggest it’s time for contract-manufacturers
to take a break from buying this year’s latest computer-controlled
vacuum-casting machine and wax injectors, and instead invest in a
few common tricks to enable us to keep the now exorbitant cost of
precious metals down to thicknesses our markets can afford–
concepts per the common practices of our Italian colleagues in their
extremely well-run small shops.
We don’t need whole third-world islands of slaves, nor do we need
factories full of stamping-dies, but just a little bit of progress
in domestic contracting set-ups. Rubber mold castings are great, and
getting better every year, but definitely not enough to do the
designs that need to be done, to reinvigorate the progressive
concepts artisan and production jewelry once had in this country.
But many thanks for the rare insider leads! In gratitude, I offer
these discoveries to the group:
1: For pliers, the orthodontic industry is WAY ahead of jewelry
catalog stock (lindstrom notwithstanding), check it out.
2: For wax tools, keep an eye on discount surgical/dental supply–
some of these tools seem creepy when you think about their intended
use, but put all present wax tools to shame (Wolf of course
notwithstanding, her tools are fab!)
3: Keep an eye on eBay for those old-time dental-pulling pliers,
they are the ultimate for holding small parts and rings, etc.
4: While on ebay, pick out one of those old cast-iron grill-register
covers to use as a plier-rack-- they work great, and provide the
added bonus of reminding us each time a tool is reached for, that
hand-eye was once the way everything was done, and while victoriana
may not be to everybody’s taste, those guys were good-- not long ago
everybody could draw and sculpt, etc. The hoop is now utterly broken
in the realm of hand-eye, so we need these artifacts to remind us
how essential sculpted hand-eye is to jewelry, whether production or
otherwise (think what the Belvedere torso meant to the
renaissance…)
Cheers everyone.
J.