Dear Mr. Marrin… What a most fantastic experience… I am
envious… It must have been sensational… Which I had been a
mouse to watch with you,… What exactly were they doing… What
metals for mokume Gane… different golds… other alloys??? I
love Mokume Gane and wish I could have the equipment to do it all
the time… I took a workshop from Parsons with Gene pijanowski
(forgot how to spell it) anyway it was the best workshop ever…
We had two weeks and some one donated a furnace of sorts to which
we all had to crank the handle for each other to keep the fire
hot etc… But our billets were perfect and fantastic to our
eyes…and HUGE !! I get tired thinking of how hard we worked to
get those 3"+ billets down to size… I would love to do more
with gold in Gane style so hope to take a course this summer with
the man called Midget to make our own kilns and then work out our
mixes… I hope this is what is going to happen… But just
watching those men hammer the billet would have been a great
experience… Do you remember and article where some “Smith” went
to Japan and spent the first two week hammering out little 1"
squares of copper till finally he was allowed to hammer a
"little" something else…(PS he also had to sit on the floor…)
etc… They made teapots with no seams and with spouts…So you see
just to watch them hammer and then square their billet a little
would have been amazing… How lucky can on get in a life
time…thanks for listening… calgang .
Calgang,
Do you have more info about the Mokume workshop at Parson’s? Is
it still offered? Or maybe you know of some other Mokume
workshops in the NYC area? I love Mokume Gane and would love to
explore it further, and gain access to better equipment for it!