The role of education in metalsmithing

Jewelry Discussion
41 
but it's become apparent to me in the last few decades that college
has become more of a finishing school experience than a preparation
for a career. Secondary schools seem more and more to have dropped
the ball, and more and more kids require remedial reading, writing
and math training in their freshman and even sophomore years just
to begin to get anything out of college

Amen to that. But it’s pretty clear why this is happening. If you
just read the Orchid postings and look at how many of the posters are
teaching in colleges and you look at their spelling (I mean, come on
people, computers have spell checkers) and grammar, and then look at
the graduates (with higher degrees no less) who also can’t spell or
write it’s no wonder that people aren’t learning more in school. It
is an excuse when English is your second language (or for those of
you who may be dyslexic). It’s not an excuse to just say “oh it’s
only an email”. Everything that anyone posts on a public forum
effectively becomes a public document. Do you really want everyone to
know you can’t spell or write properly, including potential employers
and customers? Turn on your spell checkers, proofread your writing.
Everyone benefits. Oh, and by the way, I have no college education.

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC

42 
Secondary schools seem more and more to have dropped the ball, and
more and more kids require remedial reading, writing and math
training in their freshman and even sophomore years just to begin
to get anything out of college. I guess that's where the emphasis
on college has come from, that a high school diploma means very
little more than what used to be a sixth or seventh grade reading
level.

Dave, wow, that’s a pretty broad stretch you’re making there. I used
to teach HS mathematics and I’d say it depends on the area. However,
even in a bad neighborhood in Chicago, I taught AP Calculus in a
high school.

It depends.

Nancy Goodenough

43 
On another subject may I also agree with Jeff Herman's advice
about the "Goldsmith's Review", as a Freeman of the Goldsmith's
Company,

I was intrigued by this, so I went to The Goldsmith’s Company
website, which is here: The Goldsmiths' Company | Contributing to national life for 700 years | London UK to see
if the publication is on display online. It’s not, but it’s for
sale, along with a whole library of other things. I also discovered
this: http://www.whoswhoingoldandsilver.com Which I’m pasting, but it
comes off the Company’s page. Interesting stuff, that…

44 
If you just read the Orchid postings and look at how many of the
posters are teaching in colleges and you look at their spelling

And Amen to that! Poor spelling is one of my pet hates. When I was at
school, they taught us what we needed to know - no ifs or buts -
properly taught lessons that would last for life. The minute the
lesson began, the teacher was teaching and you would be learning
right to the last minute of the lesson. When I was teaching, it
became apparent just how little is actually taught these days. I
found this SO frustrating.

Now, in the UK, there is a set pattern that every lesson must follow

  • this is since they brought in the National Curriculum. You start
    each lesson with a “starter” activity which might be a quiz or word
    search or some such completely useless waste of time. Then you would
    waste some more time telling the kids what the aims and objectives of
    the lesson are, “by the end of this lesson you will be able to…”.
    Then you’d have the body of the lesson which would only last about
    twenty minutes and then for ten minutes at the end you had to
    summarise (English spelling) the lesson so the children could
    ascertain whether the objectives of the lesson had been met.
    Spelling mistakes are no longer marked like they used to be. When I
    was at school, EVERY spelling mistake was marked and you had to write
    out the correct spelling five times in the margin. It was effective.
    Now, you are only allowed to mark one or two spelling mistakes in any
    one piece of work because it’s thought that if you mark too much with
    red pen, they’ll get upset - the poor dears! In the schools I taught
    where the National Curriculum was followed to the letter, very
    little was actually taught and learned, whereas a school where I did
    some teaching practice whilst a student, the head teacher didn’t like
    all the namby pamby modern methods and allowed the teachers to teach
    the old fashioned way (when inspected by OFSTED, they went by the
    prescribed methods of course). That school’s results were leaps and
    bounds ahead of the others in terms of its results. Our exam systems
    have been dumbed down to the extent where the kids virtually only
    have to turn up and write their names and they’ve passed. Then,
    rather than university being for the intellectual elite, everyone
    goes to university and gets a degree now. But as has been pointed
    out, they have to spend the first year learning stuff they should
    already know.

Personally I don’t bother with spell checkers as I take a pride in
being able to spell and besides which, you can spell a word wrong
and it still be a legitimate word and so spell checker won’t pick it
up. I prefer to proof read what I’ve written. The odd little typo
still gets through sometimes. Why can’t we go back to proper
teaching/ learning? We’re breeding a generation of illiterate people.
Oh and I hate text speak!!! All that CU L8R rubbish! Don’t get me
started, ggrrrrrrr!

Helen
UK

45 
Turn on your spell checkers, proofread your writing. Everyone
benefits.

Thank you, Daniel. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I don’t have a college education either, and was home-schooled after
the first semester of third grade, but this very thing drives me
nuts on a daily basis. Firefox even has an option that will
spellcheck as you type.

Lindsay Legler
Dreaming Dragon Designs
http://www.dreamingdragondesign.etsy.com

46 
The point of a good liberal arts education is to learn to think, to
research, and to communicate; and to broaden and deepen your
general knowledge.

I agree entirely with Beth’s post. I just wanted to emphasize one
point: The goal of a liberal education is to learn how to
discriminate.

For example, there are anti- discrimination laws. That’s a misnomer;
it should be anti-prejudice laws.

Prejudice means you have already made up your mind without regard to
fact.

Discrimination refers to differences between one thing and another.
As in, this is not like that or this is like that. ; It, the faculty
of discrimination, does not make a judgement.

The title of these laws “anti-discrimination” show how inexact is
their understanding of the english language.

A liberal education at a good school will change one’s life in
immeasurable ways. It prepares one for everything that follows.

KPK

47 
Actually, any GOOD liberal arts degree will do this. The point of
a good liberal arts education is to learn to think, to research,
and to communicate; and to broaden and deepen your general
knowledge. With the rapid change in careers and options now, and
the huge number of job changes people go through today, any
genuinely good liberal arts degree should prepare the recipient to
be able to quickly learn any missing knowledge in a new job. It
does not have to be a business degree by any means.

Beth, I don’t think everyone is on the same wavelength. a university
education is not usually a ‘liberal arts’ education. I don’t know
about you, but I was ‘able to think’ long before I set foot in a
university, and none of the classes I was required to take broadened
my ‘general knowledge’; rather, they were studies in a specific
field, whether that field was the English language, organic
chemistry, philosophy, or psychology. Look at most major university’s
websites, and you will see exhortations about their success rates in
placing students into jobs or graduate schools, not describing
themselves as ‘a place to learn to learn, without thought of entering
a specific career’. If a student is looking to ‘broaden their
horizons’, be ‘interesting at parties’, and ‘find themselves’, I
suggest a stint in the Peace Corp, attending missions in South
America, Africa, or Bangladesh, or even joining the military. If a
university degree was anything but training to begin a career, why
would a student worry about what major to pursue? If different majors
don’t help to achieve a career in a specific field, why have
different majors at all? If a BFA doesn’t help to become a
metalsmith, what is the point in the classes teaching ANY
metalsmithing at all? The schools offering the BFA’s should state UP
FRONT that the degree is meant as ‘liberal arts’, and not intended to
prepare the student for a career in any field. Somehow, I bet that
admissions would drop.

Lee

48

John:

I also discovered this: http://www.whoswhoingoldandsilver.com
Which I'm pasting, but it comes off the Company's page. Interesting
stuff, that....

Thanks for this contribution - truly a delight to peruse. Those are
some very creative jewelers in that group. I thoroughly enjoyed
checking it out. Some very contemporary work out there.

K

49

I’m glad you posted to this Nancy. I was also in public education
for twenty years on the secondary level (as a teaching librarian),
and if there might be anything to the idea that more kids are coming
out of high schools not functioning on grade level, it would be more
to do with the fact that expanded special ed. programs are actually
keeping kids in school who would have otherwise dropped out. At
least that is what I saw happening where I was. And perhaps that the
increasing need for colleges to attract students for financial
reasons has made these “bridge” type programs, where students who
need it can be remediated, much more popular. Those students might
not otherwise be showing up in colleges at all, otherwise.

Not a jewelry topic, I know but, like Nancy, I couldn’t let that
comment pass. I spent too many years working with too many wonderful
teachers and students.

Rachel

50

It is very interesting that so many people decry the state of
schools, teaching, and the lower expectations “they” have of
students. Not that this isn’t a problem, but why do I keep running
across very bright middle and high school students who are expected
to do a whole lot more in the way of studying and are doing work
that is so far advanced from the things that were expected when I was
in school that they are nearly unrecognizable? For example, a few
months ago I was talking with a 13 year old who, when asked what her
most interesting subject in school was, started talking about string
theory and how it related to relativity! Keep in mind that there is
a wide range of quality in schools and teaching at all levels.

Also, in terms of skills learned in a college metalsmithing program,
keep in mind that undergraduate programs are geared toward
introducing a wide range of knowledge and techniques to students
rather than focusing on having students practice and perfect
specific skills. Add to that, the fact that most students are young
and don’t really grasp the difference between being acquainted and
being proficient with a technique and you run into the mismatch that
the experienced goldsmith finds when interviewing a recent graduate.
Trade schools do put more emphasis on repetitive practice and
mastering skills, but also give less breadth.

Mary Ellin D’Agostino, PhD
www.medacreations.com

51 
The schools offering the BFA's should state UP FRONT that the
degree is meant as 'liberal arts', and not intended to prepare the
student for a career in any field. Somehow, I bet that admissions
would drop.

And that’s what it’s all about - bums on seats - as we say across
the pond! The universities need student numbers in order to get the
funding they need for the research they want to do. I was almost
lured to university in order to study “biomedical science” because
its course description sounded so glamourous. A university lecturer
who came to college when we were going through the university
application process was very honest and said that that degree would
lead exactly nowhere and advised me to do a chemistry degree instead,
which is what I did.

Whilst at university, I saw big changes - one of which was that they
decided to shut down the chemistry department and no longer offer
chemistry as a degree course! Apparently nobody leaving college
wanted to study chemistry anymore. Instead, they started
manufacturing new, exotic-sounding courses like “sports science”,
“medicinal chemistry” and “forensic science” - the latter of which
was to attract all the students who grew up watching episodes of
Quincy (now I sound old!) or reading Patricia Cornwell and Kathy
Reichs and the like (today’s CSI viewing kids). The course very
quickly became fully booked with students who fancied themselves as
forensic pathologists and the like, but the lecturers were very
depressed about having to teach such a course because they knew that
there are only ever a handful of such posts available around the
country and nearly all of these kids were going to end up with a
degree that would be useless for what they wanted to do. Yes, sure
they could do a low paid job, working in a lab, performing repetitive
tests and where the qualifications for such jobs were much lower than
the students had ended up with - but they were never going to end up
with their dream job of turning up to a crime scene and being
responsible for collecting and then later testing evidence and
ultimately “solving” said crime which is what they all imagined
they’d be doing.

It’s a sad fact that the hands of those who teach in universities
are tied and are less able to ensure that students leave university
prepared for their chosen career. Their job is to lure students into
university to study exotic sounding courses so that the university
gets the money it needs to function and perform the research that
will bring in yet more money to keep it afloat. Ooh I do sound more
than a little skeptical!

Helen
UK
http://www.hillsgems.co.uk
http://www.helensgems.etsy.com

52 
Turn on your spell checkers, proofread your writing. Everyone
benefits.

I’m a little reluctant to dip my toe into this particular pool, I
know poor spelling is a pet peeve of Daniel’s (as he has said it
before). I understand that everybody has their things that bug them
and sometimes all anyone can do is shout into the wind. But I would
rather that all of those with a good idea share it and that they not
worry too much about their spelling or grammar. There is a huge
segment of people in this business who are super talented
craftspeople but who rarely pick up a book or write a letter. I for
one would like to hear their thoughts as well as the posts of the
Spelling Bee champs. It’s the ideas and techniques that interest me,
that supersedes any flaws in the presentation.

Mark

PS my spell checker says metalsmithing is not a word… but what does
it know.

53 
Not a jewelry topic, I know but, like Nancy, I couldn't let that
comment pass. I spent too many years working with too many
wonderful teachers and students.

Yes, Rachel - I’m not a teacher. When I read the things referred to
I didn’t get all outraged, but I did think we were dealing with
statistics and cliches more than real education - No Child Left
Behind and all that rubbish. Despite all that somehow America and
elsewhere still seems to manage to pump out doctors, lawyers and
engineers. That fact that many of the engineers are from India these
days is another issue…;<} And I have no problem just saying
outright that television has taken it’s toll on brain waves, but
that’s not just here, either. I have a mid-20s relative who just got
his Phd, that’s after spending 8 years in the Amazon basin studying
his field, and traveling the world, too. And he speaks 5 languages
more or less well. And then Stanford just sort of snapped him up the
next day after graduation… The deep, dark abyss is always there
to see - call me dingy, but I prefer to look up at the blue sky.

54 
in terms of skills learned in a college metalsmithing program, keep
in mind that undergraduate programs are geared toward introducing a
wide range of knowledge and techniques to students rather than
focusing on having students practice and perfect specific skills.
Add to that, the fact that most students are young and don't really
grasp the difference between being acquainted and being proficient
with a technique

I have been educated in both the U.S. and Australia. I chose
Australia for my undergrad, because well, it was Australia! The
course was HIGHLY conceptual, with the requirement to display certain
techniques in our work for each class, but otherwise, to learn
techniques as we would need them. I’m grateful for the conceptual
aspect of the course, because I have found that I am excellent at
problem-solving, which I believe is a result of having to think
outside the box on so many different levels to come up with a design
relating to different concepts.

Anyway, I returned to the U.S. with one semester left of my degree
to finish, and took courses at Oregon College of Art and Craft. The
style of teaching was completely different in that more technical
aspects were taught with a small emphasis on concept. I feel like I
learned much more, technically, than I would have in Australia, and
am grateful that my education went the way it did.

Only now, when I am a practicing metalsmith outside of school, am I
able to really concentrate on techniques and take singular courses
that concentrate on specific things (like casting or
electroforming).

55 
It is very interesting that so many people decry the state of
schools, teaching, and the lower expectations "they" have of
students. Not that this isn't a problem, but why do I keep running
across very bright middle and high school students who are
expected to do a whole lot more in the way of studying and are
doing work that is so far advanced from the things that were
expected when I was in school that they are nearly unrecognizable?
Trade schools do put more emphasis on repetitive practice and
mastering skills, but also give less breadth.

I completely agree wtih Mary Ellin. I live in the rural south, in
one of the states with the worst public school record. The average
SAT of high school seniors in my county is 900. Just appallingly
awful! That said, there are always options for those who are willing.
Some create options within the public school system, and the local
high school has a history of students scoring at the top nationally
in certain competitions - because their teacher promotes this. There
are also private schools, and a lot more homeschoolers.

When I was in high school (a MUCH better area and school that here!)
there were NO AP courses at all (college level courses taken in high
school); I don’t even remember an “honors” level courses. You took
what you took.

My daughter, on the other hand, drove an hour each way to get to a
good academic private school, where some kids would graduate with
enough AP classes to cover a year or more of college. Where a
graduating class of 20 would get between 1.5 and 2.5 MILLION in
scholarship offers. Certainly not for learning nothing!

That said, I do residencies in schools around SC, and the quality of
the education varies extremely widely. Some schools are doing a
great job, some are incredibly awful. And based on my experience,
even our best schools are way behind the average schools in many
northern states. When I got to grad school I found that what I had
learned in my BA in art in college had been covered for some of my
northern classmates in high school. So there are huge geographic
variances in education at all levels.

Whether you want to be a metalsmith or a doctor or whatever, part of
your decision making is how broad you want your foundation to be,
versus how deep you want to go quickly. The depth will be necessary
eventually, but for some students the initial breadth is important.
I had a very wide background originally, as I changed schools and
majors radically. This has had a positive impact on my life on an
ongoing basis. So when it came time to work with my daughter on
choosing a college program, I encouraged her to go for breadth at the
undergraduate level, and then narrow for depth at the graduate
level, feeling that this would allow her both the leeway to make
changes in direction successfully, and the intellectual “food” this
particular child genuinely requires.

Every student is different, and for many the time spent on breadth
is pretty much a waste. They would be better served by going straight
for the depth. Neither approach is better, IMHO, but they are quite
different. I think the key is for both student and parent to
understand both the differences and their potential impacts, and to
look clearly at the student and the students’ strengths, weaknesses,
and desires.

When looking at any college/university art program, meet with the
faculty and students. Visit the studios. See what type of work is
being done, how it is being taught, where graduates are going. If
this meets your goals, great. If not, keep looking! Personally, I
feel this is true for ANY major, and this is exactly what we did
with my daughter and history. Not all programs or faculty are created
equal, and you need to match the faculty, program, and student. The
other thing this does, when done correctly, is make sure the faculty
know who your student IS, where they are coming from, and where they
are going. They are much more likely to take them seriously when
they have met them in person in advance and are aware of them as an
individual with a face. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but
apparently very few prospective students in any major take the time
to do this.

Beth in SC whose daughter is, having gone through an exhaustive
college search process, loving her first semester so far!

56 
The universities need student numbers in order to get the funding
they need for the research they want to do.

Fortunately, in America at least, we have a lot more choice than
just the big universities - although unfortunately, this description
does fit most of them! Small private colleges vary widely in quality,
but there are plenty out there whose sole purpose is to educate
undergraduates. Not to provide a research facility for faculty and
graduate students, but to genuinely educate the undergraduate
student. Lots of these also have fairly deep pockets with plenty of
financial aid and scholarships available, and they reach out to
international students. There are more students from China and
Jamaica at my daughter’s school than from South Carolina!

Too often students and parents just don’t look beyond the local
university to seek other options; or they assume they cannot afford
the private college. Generally, if you can afford any college, you
can afford a private college - they really work with their students
to see that those who want to come can afford to come.

Again, check out the faculty and facilities to be sure it matches
your goals. And keep checking - faculty do change jobs, so if there
is a particular professor you want to study with make sure they are
going to be there!

Beth in SC

57 
It is very interesting that so many people decry the state of
schools, teaching, and the lower expectations "they" have of
students.

I typed a fairly cynical post decrying the state of education in the
UK, based on my experiences as both a pupil when younger and as a
mature student at university, and also as a teacher in both poor
schools and a very good school. My post was NOT an indication of any
low expectations of students that I have personally - it was my
frustration at the latest system of education which has an inclusion
for all policy and has lowered its level of education so that the
those students at the lower end of the academic scale can cope in
mainstream education. Sadly this leaves the students at the upper
end at a disadvantage, meaning that they either have to be lucky
enough to attend a very good school that caters for their
intellectual needs, or they have to work extra hard either
independently or with the teachers in order to work to their higher
educational needs.

Nobody is saying that all children are now unintelligent - simply
that the educational system today doesn’t prepare students as well as
it used to and that is a FACT. I went through school in the seventies
and pretty much everyone left school being able to read, write,
spell and do their times tables (multiplication). I have had to
supplement my own children’s education because, whilst they can read
and write adequately, school didn’t equip them with the basic skills
of spelling and multiplication and so my husband and I have had to
teach them such things. My youngest daughter who just left school
(and my children went to a very good school), won an award for her
English work. She came top in the school and got A* grades (the
highest you can get) in English language and English literature - and
yet she is sadly lacking in her English skills compared to how well
it used to be taught.

It’s very easy to listen to people complaining at the state of
education and turn it round, making it sound as though they have low
expectations of students, but that’s not the case. People who have
said such things are only saying it because they have HIGHER
expectations than what reality is showing. Speak to any teacher who
taught in the UK prior to the introduction of the National
Curriculum and then had no choice but to adapt and teach the new way

  • or lose their jobs. Many, many teachers left the profession out of
    disgust and frustration because the new ways are simply not as good
    as the old ways. Their hands are tied, just as the hands of college
    and university lecturers. It’s a little like unemployment figures
    magically becoming lower when the government introduces hair-brained
    schemes which send unemployed people on six month paid courses.
    Those people are not employed, as they will be claiming dole again
    once the course finishes, but they are off the unemployed list
    temporarily and so the figures look better and therefore government
    looks better. Education is just the same. Lower the standards so that
    all students are seen to be achieving - but it means that those at
    the top and in the middle band are not as well equipped as they
    should be.

My eldest son couldn’t be bothered to work when he was at school. He
sat his exams - for which he did NO work whatsoever - and got a
bunch of C grades, for which he was congratulated by college when he
enrolled. Incidentally, he tried two college courses, didn’t attend
at all and dropped out of both. He’s not stupid, he just doesn’t
care for academia one little bit. But really, for the amount of
effort he put in and his level of understanding, he should have got
lower grades, but with the modern system, his grades look better than
they are. The old A grades are now called A*, B grades are now called
A, C’s are B’s, etc, etc - just so that students’ achievements look
better than they are - it’s a fact. They’re now talking about doing
the same with A levels (the two year courses students take before
entering university). A grades will now be called A*, etc.

I’m not writing all this as someone who just sits there grumbling
about things in a negative fashion. I’m a very positive person
generally and don’t like negativity. But I speak as someone who has
been through the system the old way, and then went to college and
university later on in life, then taught via the modern methods,
both in good and bad schools. And I talk as a parent of four children
who have gone/are going through the education system. So I know how
well or badly the system prepares students and how it poorly reflects
abilities and achievements. I also have a brother whose teaching
career spanned the change in the education system and he saw it go
downhill and eventually left the profession because of it. He wasn’t
allowed to teach the way he wanted to teach - a method that had seen
him achieve fantastic, real results in his students - which then
changed to a system that falsely showed good grades when he knew the
students’ understanding was much poorer than it had been, due to the
lowering of standards and the crazy methods of teaching that he had
no choice but to impose. It’s bums on seats and manipulation of
figures to make the league tables of schools, colleges and
universities look better, whilst it leaves it students behind.

Having said all that, there are still some very good teachers who
somehow do manage to juggle the vast range of intellectual abilities
they are faced with in a class of pupils, bring out the best in all
of them, despite the very difficult working conditions they are now
faced with. They are super humans in my book and worth probably more
than they are being paid. In my opinion, the old ways of teaching and
learning and grading were far better than the new ways - for the
middle and upper level of abilities - but it did leave the students
in the lower bracket lacking in terms of academic results. But that
was back when we had really good apprenticeships for those students
to go into, and that’s where they could excel. We now have things
called modern apprenticeships - perhaps because the government are
realising that apprenticeships in trades were a good thing. We should
see more goldsmithing apprenticeships again.

I’ll shut up now but I wanted to put right the false assumption that
people like myself have low expectations of students - NOT the case.

Helen
UK
http://www.hillsgems.co.uk
http://www.helensgems.etsy.com

58 
Despite all that somehow America and elsewhere still seems to
manage to pump out doctors, lawyers and engineers.

I’ve just submitted another long post on the poor educational system
we now have (in my opinion) but I did point out that I am not just
being negative for the sake of it. There are problems with our
system. However, what you say is right John. There are still plenty
of high flying students and there always will be - and I did try to
point that out too. But generally speaking, the system in the UK
(and in the US by the sounds of it) has lowered its standards and is
not preparing the majority of its students well for life, when
compared to how well the system used to prepare them. It now shows
good results for those at the lower end of the intellectual scale but
it often leaves those at the top, not working to their potential and
not prepared well enough for life outside academia.

You yourself (if I remember rightly) have said that you’ve had
graduates come for a bench test and said that they have been sadly
lacking in the skills that they should have had. Nobody took that as
you being negative - just an observation on the state of how things
are now. I too prefer to “look up at the blue sky” and be positive
but my experiences as a student, teacher, mother of four children,
etc have shown that standards are now lower across the board, ie in
general and students are leaving the educational establishments not
as well prepared as they should be or as well as students used to be.
The case of doctors, lawyers, engineers are somehow the exceptions
to this trend.

Helen
UK

59

I look at absolutely everybody’s work. If you have a gallery in
Orchid, I’ve seen it. If you post a web site, I’ve been there.
Absolutely everybody. And I’m not a snob - if your work has
something going for it, probably I’ll see that, whether it’s to my
taste or not. And I’m pretty incapable of talking down somebody’s
work - I DO remember that I was young, once.

So, go to Google images and search for “Rene Lalique jewelry”. There
youwill find “Art” jewelry that is at a level of craftsmansip and
ability. Don’t look at the style or the budget they had, look at the
craftsmanship. That, or something approaching it, is what we are
looking for.

I’ve been reluctant to go to this place because of what I said above

  • bein g young once. A few people have said, here and elsewhere
    online on this topic, “I went to college and got a job.” or similar.
    One said that the notion that university metals grads are unhirable
    is a fallacy. Well, as I do, I went and looked at everybody’s work.
    And sorry, no, you can’'t work here - that’s just not good enough.
    We operate at a higher level of excelllence than that - we are a
    trade shop, yes, and what that means is that we make anything and
    everything anybody wants - “Art”, traditional, off-the-wall, we make
    it. It’s not elitist at all - if you want this job you must know
    these things, and you don’t. Don’t use your professor as a benchmark
    of excellence, use Lalique. He wasn’t a disembodied legend of lore,
    he was a man just like us - he just worked at a level of excellence.
    And truly much of it isn’t that excellent, either. People just like
    his style. Widen your horizons - there are goldsmiths doing work that
    will curl your hair, every day.

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com

60

I attended Maine College of Art ('81). I received great training. No
CAD CAM, no electric rolling mills, no electroforming. Everything had
to be made by hand…fabricated. Four years of 3-D design, and 2-D
design, drawing, sculpture, etc. I WAS prepared to go out and be a
professional metalsmith. Though I started making jewelry in high
school, it was the teaching I received from Hal Schremmer and Tommy
Thompson that gave me the tools needed to survive technically in this
world. I could have struck out on my own, but heard of an opening in
the design department at Gorham Silversmiths. The head designer, Burr
Sebring, saw that I was equipped technically and as a designer to
hire me immediately as a designer, sample maker, and technical
illustrator.

One other thing: I was in no way prepared to start a business. I DO
believe there should be a few basic mandatory business courses in
design school which would help kick start a possible business
start-up.

Read my 21st Century Silversmith which I presented at the SNAG
conference in Seattle: Society of American Silversmiths - The 21st Century Silversmith.

Best,
Jeff Herman