Secrecy versus sharing information

Greetings everyone.

Regarding secrecy versus sharing in the past two years
or so, since I decided to seriously learn to make jewelry from
precious metals, I have lucky to meet and work with many people who
are willing to share their knowledge with me. All I had to do was ask!
The last time I shopped at Allcraft, I met two very generous young
women. One was a native New Yorker, who told me where to go to buy
cowrie shells in bulk in Harlem. I had commented on a necklace she
made, and said I was surprised at the high cost of shells I had seen
for sale. The other was a student from Germany, about to have a show
here in the city. She was looking for something to use to clean her
finished pieces that had tarnished. I only wish I had known about the
washing soda/aluminum trick I learned about here on Orchid so that I
could have shared it with her. (It works great.) She was wearing a
beautiful hollow constructed sterling/gold/diamond ring. I
complimented her on it, asked if it was cast, and she proceeded to
take it off of her finger to show it to me, and explained step by step
how she made it (fabricated, not cast). It was the same concept as one
of the rings in Alan Revere’s book “Professional Goldsmithing”, taken
a few steps further. What a wonderful lesson I got that day.

Gail Middleton
Unique Studio
Brooklyn, NY