What would you tell college students?

Jewelry Discussion
61 
Decades ago when I visited an art school in China the drawing
class started with cubes, spheres, cylinders and pyramids.
Finished with skeletons. How many art schools in the west do that
know?

I was a studio art major from Sweet Briar College. The director of
art wasLauren Oliver. He was a very perceptive man. He pretty much
started us on spheres, cubes, etc. At first I thought it was beneath
me, but realized later it wasn’t. So it is done on the " west." An I
finished with skeletons " not because Mr. Oliver had us do it " but
because I was that creepy Goth kid. :wink:

El

62

Andy Cooperman asked good questions about Art.

My old girlfriend back in the 60’s had a flip answer for your
question about Art. She was a great artist, still is. Her answer
really doesn’t stand up to close analysis but on the other hand it
had a few generally good effects. It saved a lot of energy that
might have been wasted arguing about stuff which either couldn’t be
settled or about which everyone’s opinions would change by next week
or next year anyway. A little deeper level, people got a grip on the
personal, idiosyncratic nature of the beast. They got thrown back on
discerning their own feelings, not on to other folk’s theorizing or
ego-burnishing.

FWIW Here it is. Art is Art. Everything else is everything else.

On to the next thing…
Cheers, Marty

63

Hello Andy,

As someone who has worked with historical collections I would have to
say that art is something that has survived man’s transgressions. I
find it fascinating that it is the smallest objects that survive and
jewelry seems to survive intact in most cases. Am sure you will get a
lot of feedback on your question… both negative and positive.

Best,
Chris

64

Just babbling…

Another way of thinking about this topic is by asking yourself
what’s important to you. I’ve been working in silver for 37 years,
since I was 17.

My path has taken me to different areas: art school, as designer,
sample maker, and technical illustrator at Gorham, mass-production of
ecclesiastical work at another silver company, and my introduction
to silver restoration. And it’s restoration and conservation I’ve
been doing for 30 years. I enjoy it to this day, interspersed with
the occasional “art” piece in silver. There are a few things that
makes me feel secure in my chosen customers’ goods, investment
account for later years, and savings (I’m still working on having
three months’ worth in case of an emergency). I know MANY artists who
are content creating pieces that don’t yet have a home and don’t do
commission work. Many of these same artists can’t afford or prefer
not to have insurance with the hopes that nothing serious will happen
to them. Life is all about choices. Life is also about developing a
comfortable balance that will allow us all to do what we enjoy most.

Jeff Herman

65

Dave- “Professional Artist. There’s two words you don’t see together
very often”.

Actually Professional Artist is what my father and a number of his
friends were. That’s why I have had no problem making money as and
artist or artisan or craftsman or whatever you want to call us.

When I size a ring, that’s not art to me. When I make things out of
the ideas that pop up in my sick little mind because I want to, well
then I think I’m an artist.

At least once a year, sometimes more, I take time from the
commercial bench work and computer to make what I call my Caprices. I
don’t care if I ever sell them.

As Tim and I have reached near the end of our careers due to age
related physical issues, we find ourselves making things we’ve always
wanted to.

Have fun and make lots of art.

Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com

66 
I really think it's important that every person considering making
it their life-sustaining trade should be made keenly aware of how
difficult it can be to make a living working metal as a rookie
with no safety net.

As usual, David’s got it going on. I think the bottom line of this
thread, what college students (assuming metals students) are rarely
taught or told, is what SHOULD be told.

It is ridiculously easy to make art. Give a bunch of kids a big box
of crayons and a pad of paper and watch them go. It is ridiculously
easy to make pretty good adult art, too. Make a band and then stick
anything your heart desires on top of it - maybe craft a loaf of
bread. let’s say. Voila! You’re an artist - seriously. Sitting in
your back bedroom making your heart’s desire is easy and lots of fun
and lots of people love it and good for them. Maybe you even sell
some of it after awhile.

Now, getting people to give you a thousand bucks a week for your
art, week in, week out, that’s darn difficult. That’s only
$52K/year, maybe $20-30k net, a modest income, less than many here
make.

How to do that as an outlook towards a career has been discussed
already in recent times, no need to re-hash it… John D.

67

Just babbling…

Another way of thinking about this topic is by asking yourself
what’s important to you. I’ve been working in silver for 37 years,
since I was 17.

My path has taken me to different areas: art school, as designer,
sample maker, and technical illustrator at Gorham, mass-production of
ecclesiastical work at another silver company, and my introduction
to silver restoration. And it’s restoration and conservation I’ve
been doing for 30 years. I enjoy it to this day, interspersed with
the occasional “art” piece in silver. There are a few things that
makes me feel secure in my chosen customers’ goods, investment
account for later years, and savings (I’m still working on having
three months’ worth in case of an emergency). I know MANY artists who
are content creating pieces that don’t yet have a home and don’t do
commission work. Many of these same artists can’t afford or prefer
not to have insurance with the hopes that nothing serious will happen
to them. Life is all about choices. Life is also about developing a
comfortable balance that will allow us all to do what we enjoy most.

Jeff Herman

68

Hi David,

well, there had to another metal smith here, with the background in
the diciplines of aviation behind him.

Good to know its you.

The DC9 was after my time, I sat infront of my panel with 4 RR
griffons on 28lb boost on TO.

You never forget that!! On a serious note, it was my job to make
sure we did a 14 hr anti Russian sub hunt over the N atlantic and got
back in one piece.

No mean task. Our Flt /eng training was hard, rigorous and
unforgiving, it had to be, because of that its stood me in good
stead these past 45 yrs.

In love the challenge of metal work, its demanding and unforgiving,
but if you can master it the rewards are worth it.

Ive never had to use the net to sell what I make, all my work is
wrought, tho I fabricate, mainly structural steel work!!. believe it
or not for my own use of course…

Google for ted Frater bronzesmith and minter. bit more background
there.

For example, how do you take an 1889 slide hammer drop stamp,
normally built into a factory on the road? you have to build it all
yourself.

As for what to tell students? Thats the job of the teacher, or
master, and theres a hell of a big difference between these 2.

A real, successful master knows all the answers, and any student who
can get a place with one is damn lucky.

thers No excuse whatsoever for any student not to research all the
tech knowhow thats available today.

If he hasnt then it out the door. Id like to see a student take some
copper, make a simple saucepan out of sheet, braze it up with
spelter over charcoal, then make it watertight.

Then maybe, let him have a go with a small bit of silver.

IF its been done before it can be done again. But then, im really
hard bastard.

Keep in touch.
Ted.

69 
As Tim and I have reached near the end of our careers due to age
related physical issues, we find ourselves making things we've
always wanted to.

Jo, I’m sending you and Tim good health vibes. I really am. Can you
feel 'em?

One thing I like about making jewelry for a living is thatif you are
self employed you can keep on doing it long into what might be
considered retirement years.

The thing that really bugs me the most, even though I tend to be
someone who accepts things that I can’t change, is human frailty and
our generally short life expectancy. Just when you really get things
figured out and are at your peak of knowledge and experience, your
body starts to betray you. I think that stinks. Mark

70 
As Tim and I have reached near the end of our careers due to age
related physical issues, we find ourselves making things we've
always wanted to.

When I wrote the words Professional Artist, I thought specifically
of you and Tim, Jo. You guys epitomize what I’m talking about. Your
paths although quite different from mine, followed pretty much the
same major bullet-points of career progression as mine. In the first
ten or fifteen years of my career (the serious trade-work part
anyway, before that I grew up working in the family shop as a
teenager and couldn’t wait to start flying for a living, so that
doesn’t really count except for earning my forging chops as Dad’s
hammer-wielding human rolling mill) I probably set a hundred tennis
bracelets and sized several hundred rings for every piece I got to
make that I would consider as something approaching my own art. As I
gained experience and seniority that ratio slowly decreased.

Now, as I wind down like an old watch like Jo and Tim (and John and
Jo-Ann maybe?), I get to make more things of my own. I do almost no
ring sizings or retippings anymore (I have art grads working for me
that do that stuff) but my ratio of income-producing commission work
to “just because I want to” work is still probably ten or twenty to
one. The other main difference between my current situation and my
early career is that I am building net worth in my business now as
opposed to simply surviving.

I’m also trying to do something that very few people ever did for
me; create a work environment that puts business income second to
truly encouraging creativity and growth in the people that work for
me. My accountant and other professional jewelry people keep telling
me I’m screwing up big-time (and have been telling me that for the
last ten years), but I believe in what I’m doing and in the people
that I trust to do work for the customer’s and clients that trust me
and my shop (no small thing for me). One day, if the right thread
comes along, I’ll expand on this. Here’s a little hint of my
counter-accepted-practice thinking that drives the “experts” crazy -
if I had a dedicated polisher, that person would not be the least
experienced person in the shop, they would be among the most
experienced and well-paid. Soldering is easy. Stone setting is easy.
Proper finishing is not.

I’ll end by telling Elaine’s students - no matter how hard it’s been
to get to where I am, or how much easier it might have been to get
somewhere else, I wouldn’t trade this career for any other that I
know of. Regardless of how much it pays.

Dave Phelps

71 
The thing that really bugs me the most, even though I tend to be
someone who accepts things that I can't change, is human frailty
and our generally short life expectancy. Just when you really get
things figured out and are at your peak of knowledge and
experience, your body starts to betray you. I think that stinks.

Then that is what you need to tell college students. This ain’t no
practice life. You had better figure these things out in time that
you can do them before you are too old or dead.

Steve Walker

72 
I wind down like an old watch like Jo and Tim (and John and Jo-Ann
maybe?), I get to make more things of my own

Yes, David - by way of conversation - that old watch. I turned 61
just before Christmas, which isn’t at all old but I’ve been doing
this for a living since I was 19. It’s the eyes that go first. As
for the rest, making things, I have been blessed. It’s like the
saying goes (pointed at no one, this) that people have midlife
crises because they didn’t have a life. I’m pretty much the exact
opposite - my career has been long and fulfilling and I miss
nothing. I’m one happy camper… Cheers! John D.

73

One last thing, take care of your bodies. I lost more hearing from
notwearing ear protectors, suffered really bad tendinitis from
never-ending emerying, and pacing yourself. If you are going to be a
silversmith, pounding metal, wear ear protectors, and don’t emery
paper so much. Invent in the 3M grey deburring wheels to do your
sanding, and it really does help a lot. I had to get cochlear
implants from losing more of my poor hearing, and almost twenty
years later, still struggle with tendinitis. The 3M grey deburring
wheels saved my hands and my sanity, esp. when having to refinish
hammers and stakes. My eyesight is now goingand having to upgrade my
Optivisors and progressive lens isn’t fun. Wear #3 green shades when
using the Little Torch with oxy/actylene torches. I know you college
kids will go, HA, won’t happen to me. Well, I was a college student,
and I wish I could have known the hazards 25 years ago. Would have
save me so much in medicine bills, doctor visits, physical therapy
and the never-ending pain I have to live with for the rest of my
life. Also, practice proper posture and become good friends withyour
chiropractor and massage therapist - they are worth it. Joy

74

I have enjoyed this thread so much. Thank you to all of you that
have yearsof experience beyond my years in life. I am 39 years old.
I have been a jeweler for about 12 years. I am actually a Registered
Nurse. I gave upthat career because I could not stop making things
with my hands and I just could not go to a building everyday and do
a job when my head was constantly somewhere else. (I still moonlight
as an RN a few times a month keepingmy foot in the door.)

I wake up everyday with a new idea. I wake up everyday excited to
tackle whatever. I don’t say no to anyone. If I cannot do it I find
someone that can and get it done and learn from them. I am at ahuge
disadvantage that I live in the middle of absolutely no where but I
do well with that being the case.

Huge bummer. I will die before I get to learn everything. I have so
much to learn. I’m just getting good/confident. I hope I can live
and keep my hands in one piece to learn and learn and learn. This is
the beauty of it. Yes, I work very hard. I put in more hours than I
would as a nurse/employee and I make less. But it’s amazing, your
journey with creation. I took a workshop a few years ago and I
wasreally frustrated with whatever we were doing and my instructor
said to me, ‘Joy, people have been working with metal for 7,000
years. You can’t learn it all today. It takes time.’ I still chuckle
at that.

Thank you again to all of you with the knowledge and the sharing of
it. I have learned most of my skills through books/videos. I have
taken some workshops but I have no college/trade school education in
metals at all. I have no art classes at all. I wish I could spend a
year or 10 in a manufacturing setting and learn what I need to but
that is not going to happen with my life situationat this point. I
will keep marching along here in the middle of no where reinventing
the wheel until I’m in the ground pushing up daises. I cannot
imagine not doing what I do. Even if I take a couple days off to go
somewhereby the second day I’m anxious to make something and get
back in my workshop. Thanks to all of you especially the ones who
have taken the time to teach. Thanks. :slight_smile:

joy kruse
wildprairiesilver.com

75

Stone setting is easy.

Proper finishing is not.

It always irritates me when a person in one of my classes says, "Oh
I have a tumbler at home, I will just polish it that way when I get
home. Too many think the quick method is perfectly fine.

Then later (maybe weeks, maybe months) I might run into that
student, and they always tell me I should teach better so that they
would know how to make it look perfect. These are the same people that
thought my teaching how to sand, getting into tight places, taking
the time to use their flex shaft properly, the many items used to
finish a piece by hand, was a waste of time.

I usually tell them I taught it, but they were too busy to listen.

Yes that is a slam at them, but I take

the time to teach finishing methods, both hand and flex shaft. A
tumbler to me if you don’t do the prep work is just being lazy and
taking short cuts that in the end will come back to haunt you.
Tumblers for finishing do have their place. But know their
limitations. This is just my opinion.

76

Hi

had one of my jewellery students show me a ladies signet ring LOL,
that had snapped on the back of the band.

She paid $69 dollars for it. Band 1 mm thick 1.5 mm wide at back.
Same rings went on sale for $25.

I said to take it back and get your money back, it is rubbish. Oh no
she loves it. In Australia get your signet blanks from Euromount,
they are the real English deal assay marks and all.

Tomorrows lesson will be to re-solder the shank. Next lesson will be
to thicken the shank.

Moving up from the tiny butane torch to a professional torch, Orca I
think. Setting up the bench tomorrow torch holder made from wire and
bolted to bench.

Introducing students to a flexi an old Italian model combo with
buff. Low speed can stop it with your fingers.

Showing them how to set up a bench. Same student is in one of my
Geography classes, had finished her computer task, put her onto Rene
Lalique. “I want that and that and that…”

Now going on the scrounge, for seeding tools and cash, anything at
all.

The school is a registered charity and and is the last stop for most
of our students.

We are 90% Aboriginal students.

I will do a mass email to suppliers to see if I can get anything.

If you have something, you don’t need or would like to help email me
offline and I can connect you to our web page. On here I cannot post
the name of the school, paper work nightmare.

Love the bureaucrats LOL.

Richard

77

Hello again,

I had responded to this thread initially, and just have one
addition. Have each student read the final chapter in Tim McCreight’s
book, “Jewelry Making, Techniques for Metal - 10. Considerations for
the Professional.” My edition is pretty old, but the down-to-earth
advice he offers is just as appropriate today as when first printed.
In fact, the whole book should be in their library as it contains so
many basic bits of and inspiration!

OK, shutting up now.

Judy in Kansas, who watched all the birds eating SNOW this morning.
There was open water in the heated water bowl, and still they seemed
to crave the snow. Another mystery to investigate.

78

Hi

showed the student how to fix the shank, good post in Orchid
archives about this.

When I louped the shank it had been resized and not well soldered.

Solder not all the way through the join. At least the shop did not
charge for the resize when she bought the ring. Won’t go down well
when she fronts the shop.

She watched the demo and then gently rounded the ring up.

Richard

79

Hi a quote from my teacher, Walraven van Heeckeren, Master Silver
and Goldsmith In order to set the creative spirit free, it is
necessary to impart to the student a good grounding in mechanical
technique, without which, the translation from imagination to three
dimensional form is severely restricted.

80

That’s perfect! There are too many students graduating without that
understanding.

Jeff Herman