Seeds of Knowledge - A story about us

Seeds of Knowledge

Originally Published by AJM, December 2002 (www.ajm-magazine.com)
By: Suzanne Wade

Six years ago, the Internet was still in its first flowering,
populated largely by academics, students, and computer nerds.
Although terms like “superhighway” were making their way
into mass media, the Internet was still more of a geek paradise than
a serious business tool. It was in those early days that Dr. E.
Aspler of Bangkok, Thailand, staked out an outpost for jewelers on
this electronic frontier. The Orchid e-mail forum began when Aspler
suggested to Canadian jeweler and educator Charles Lewton-Brain that
they use then-cutting-edge e-mail list technology to establish an
online forum for the jewelry industry.

The list has grown to include hundreds of jewelry makers on six
continents. An English-speaking community, the majority of its
members come from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand. But there are also regular posts from
participants in South America, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, India, the
Middle East, and Europe.

In an industry often summarized by a joke about how many jewelers it
takes to change a light bulb (five, one to change the bulb and four
to hold screens to hide what he’s doing), Orchid’s wide open sharing
has made it a valued tool for new and veteran bench jewelers alike.

“I have been making jewelry for 27 years and I taught for 10, but
it’s impossible to know everything,” says Poppy Vincent of Art
Jewelry by Poppy in Chatham, Illinois. “The people here are so
willing to share what they know. So often artists start freaking out
if you pick up a piece of jewelry and start analyzing how it was
made. They’re sure their idea is going to be ripped off. Not so with
the Orchid people. They’re more than happy to go into great detail
to help you solve any problems you have. [And] it doesn’t matter
what you’re looking for or what you’re trying to do, someone is
bound to have the you need.”

“For me, the best thing Orchid provides is a huge breadth of
responses,” says Larry Seiger of LS Hancock in Cary, North Carolina.
“[For example], I put out a message asking for help finding someone
to custom cut a watch crystal for a watch I am building. Though no
one had any idea about where to contact a watch crystal cutter, I
received several responses with such innovative solutions that I
began to refocus my attention to making one myself. I was able to
create my own crystal out of Pyrex glass in my studio. You just
never know with Orchid where your question will take you.”

“One of the things that I simply love about Orchid is the ‘A-ha!’
experience I get almost daily,” says Karen Goeller, an
artist-jeweler in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. “Someone writes in about
a problem or a technique they’ve used, or a new material or tools
they’ve tried, and light bulbs go on in my head. These are not
things you’ll learn in school or even from a single apprenticeship.
They are the collective wisdom of multiple generations of artists
and craftsmen worldwide, passed along in an oral tradition.”

The list archives are another important resource. “An example [of
the usefulness of the archives] is my recent interest in a magnetic
pin finisher,” says Allen Beck, a goldsmith and lapidary from
Meridian, Idaho. “From the Orchid archives, I learned valuable
tidbits such as: I could use it for stone-in-place castings; Ajax
dish detergent works better and is more economical than burnishing
soap; dropping the water level slightly gives better results; flat
Rubbermaid containers work as well as the original bowls; and small,
round stainless shot does better on flat surfaces than the supplied
pins. All that from one episode of archive searches!”

Beyond sharing tips and tricks, Orchid’s deepest value to jewelers
is as a community of peers. “It’s not the mechanical or tangible
result that makes Orchid so valuable to me, it’s the people,” says
Dave Sebaste of Sebaste Studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. “For
once in my life, I feel connected with people of like minds and
spirits. The friendships and acquaintances I’ve made through the
Orchid community have given my life an added richness that cannot be
measured.”

“Many of us work in a fairly isolated setting, often spending a
whole day in the studio with no outside contact,” agrees Joel
Schwalb of Joel Schwalb Studio in Nyack, New York. “Orchid has
become a major source of communication with the world outside my
studio. The constant open exchange of is important, but
it is primarily the sense of community that is most important to me.
This is a very giving community, and we all benefit from
participating.”

Both students and veteran jewelers benefit from that sense of
community. “[Orchid] is a point of contact, one of the few places
where the veterans meet the amateurs,” says veteran bench jeweler
David L. Huffman of Cortland, New York, who notes that it’s not just
the amateurs who benefit from this exchange. “[Amateurs often have]
an open mind, enthusiasm, humility, respect for accomplishment,
curiosity and a drive for knowledge, and genuine excitement about
the craft. Without contact with these avid learners, we [veteran
bench jewelers] can easily forget why we ever wanted to do this in
the first place. We get to see our lifelong discipline once more
through the eyes of a new generation of artists.”

“Orchid has been like an online apprenticeship for me,” says Brad
Smith of West Los Angeles, a retired engineer and Web site designer
turned jeweler. “A given class only exposes you to a limited set [of
techniques]. Books and workshops give you a wider appreciation, but
it is the Orchid forum that has built the depth of my knowledge.
Orchid educates me on the finer details of a process, allows me to
ask questions (where a book doesn’t), opens up my mind to problems I
would never have considered, alerts me to scams and pitfalls, and
gives me a sense of community from an otherwise solitary workbench.”

For jewelers located far from the jewelry centers of New York, Los
Angeles, and Providence, the forum has also provided a much needed
resource for locating suppliers. “I found two suppliers-one caster
and one die maker-on Orchid,” says Sam Patania of Tucson. “I have
been in the jewelry business all my life, and I need to work with
quality suppliers. Without Orchid, I would not have been able to get
to know these people before I started doing business with them.
Orchid gave me an informal meeting place to meet others in the
industry where I would never have been able to.”

For suppliers, Orchid is a way to stay in touch with their market.
“As a supplier of tools and equipment to the jewelry industry,
Orchid discussions are a valuable resource for ideas for new
products and services,” says Elaine Corwin, vice president of
technical services for Gesswein in Bridgeport, Connecticut. “It’s
like attending a focus group of jewelers every day.”

The Orchid community extends beyond the electronic, and beyond
business relationships. Orchid members frequently meet other members
who live nearby, enjoy get-togethers at trade shows, and even stay
in each other’s homes when traveling. At least one marriage has
resulted from contacts first made on Orchid.

The list continues to be moderated by Aspler, who sifts through up
to 5,000 e-mails a day to select the 30 to 50 messages that list
recipients receive. Funded solely by donations, Orchid depends on
the generosity of participants to pay for the technology needed to
keep the list alive, but Aspler remains committed to keeping it free
to all." I truly believe the people who benefit most are those who
cannot afford the subscription," he says. “People who are new to the
industry, students, small scale hobbyists, retired people, [and]
unemployed people cannot afford a subscription.” It is just that
commitment to inclusion that has made Orchid a haven not just for
students and industry newcomers, but to veteran jewelers as well.
While the Internet may not have lived up to the early hype of
changing the world, in this little corner of the information
superhighway, Orchid has created a genuine global village.

The list continues to be moderated by Aspler, who sifts through up
to 5,000 e-mails a day to select the 30 to 50 messages that list
recipients receive. 

Geez … I thought I was doing it hard with a couple of hundred -
I’ll never whinge again . Suzanne writes eloquently and accurately
about the Orchid Experience - I’m gobsmacked most days at how little
I know, how many misconceptions I harbour, how clean and logical -
elegant - some of the thinking and solutions provided here are and
how generously they are offered.

And on an entirely different level I promise myself not to
mindlessly rush into print with another smart-arse response to
something I’ve read, but to sit down and try & compose a polite
civilized useful answer instead - to go against the conditioning of
2/3 of a lifetime as a pub-singer … aaah well … maybe next year?

Al Heywood