Tinkerings of a sculptor and metalsmith...: Silversmithing at London Met

2010-09-08

Silversmithing at London Met

I signed up for ten 1-day sessions of silversmithing at Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Media and Design, a school within London Metropolitan University. The sessions were tutored by Steve Wager, and financed for me by London Central YMCA as part of my continuing professional development. Sign of the times; I signed up together with only two others, both young women in their twenties. Also on the course were more than a dozen 'old timers' fairly evenly split between the sexes and mostly over fifty years old (but still mostly younger than me!). For full course notes, see my Wordpress blog at this link (opens in new window)

I found my time there hugely enjoyable, and 'bashed out' my first bowl from 1mm gilding metal (first & last stages shown above), followed by a spoon in copper,

then a pill-pot in gilding metal;

I also made a start on a larger bowl, and independently hammered a scrap silver sprue into a small spoon. I'm planning to take the Autumn term starting in early October.

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Setting - advanced course

Another Staff Development course financed by Central YMCA, was an advanced course with Niall Paisley run at Holt's Jewellery School in Hatton Garden. The course was at the end of February in 2007, three full days 9am - 6pm, and covered pave as well as bezel and prong. There is some information on the tutor at http://johnnyrocketltd.com/niall_paisley.php There were only 6 or 7 attendees, and most were in the industry to some extent or other; either employed in jewellery workshops, shops, or in at least one case, starting up a manufacturing company. And one young man had had several years training as a goldsmith, but was currently working as a central heating engineer. However, he hankered for a return to his earlier vocation. One of the highlights for me was that I was unofficially awarded 'course best' setting of a tube-set CZ, although my pave will take a lot more experience.

Maybe egg heads like domed rings...

The domed copper rings pictured above were each made in three parts, in the form of an inner plain band and an outer pair of domed half-hoops. These elements were soldered together and then polished to give the finished result. Usually my sense of purpose is more or less exhausted by the time I get to taking pictures, but I guess you could always say the reflections of my fingers give added interest... The left-hand ring has also had a sort of duck-foot motif etched in a meandering fashion round the outside, maybe I still had egg head on my mind (they were intended for an intellectual friend).

Insight into Lapidary

This course was financed for me by Central YMCA as part of my Staff Development, and ran in October 2005. It consisted of an intensive one-day course in the lapidary workshop of Holts in Hatton Garden, London and was run by Roger Dunkin.

Pieces of hard stone (varieties of quartz etc) were dopped to a stick, then ground and polished with rotating diamond and carbide laps. I managed to end up with a big blister from accidentally touching the hot dopping wax, but also took away a nice lacy agate cabochon, together with a small (4cm) carved and polished quartz cross. The workshop was very well equipped, and I will be tempted to sign up to a future facetting workshop.

From rough as a rasp... to smooth as glass

When I first started making and etching copper rings, I was entranced by the attractive patterns I could get. Subsequently however I found that the sharp vertical edges of the etch were very rough on the skin when worn even for limited periods of time, and even after the ring had been tumbled with abrasive for some hours.

I found that the raspiness was completely cured by enamelling, using the traditional techniques of melting coloured glass powder into the etched cavities. Unfortunately, since I used opaque enamel, this also robbed it of the original dynamic appeal. I feel that if I expend enough effort using transparent enamels instead, it will bring back some of the missing life. A student ring which was pierced through to give a pattern round the entire band was similarly rough on the skin; this was partly cured by fitting a fine silver liner.

No, I haven't entirely got it out of my system...

... but there's hope yet. The top two were done with coloured pencil on black paper sometime in 1985, around 3' x 4', later I tinkered with a more golden-tinted version. Reminds me of art work for the cover of a "DiscWorld" novel. The others are variously unfinished sketches done around 1990 probably. The young lady is Anna Kavanagh who was renting at Studio Place at the same time as myself. All these sketches were found heaped on the floor in a cupboard, and seem to have lost a lot of their pigment.

Some more pastel work from the eighties...

...well, that's what we did, while waiting for ipods and mobile phones to come along...As mentioned above, much of the colouring pigment seems to have ended up on the floor along with the dust. The first picture was actually a second version; I did the first on pastel paper and gifted it to Isabel Langtry, then sculptor in residence at Central YMCA. This second version was re-coloured onto a B&W photocopy, and there wasn't enough 'tooth' on the paper to take the colour. And I remember that the picture with the cluster of figures arising from the waves was used as a sketch for a version re-done on board. The fifth picture was a composite made from photographs of figures in the Foro Mussolini (now Foro Italico), and the last is a sketch I made of Stephen, my partner since 1983, in the first months we met.

Stone setting course

I took a 5-session stone setting course at Central St Martins in February 2005, financed by Central YMCA as part of my Staff Development. It ran in the evenings and was spread over five weeks. The tutor, Martin Hopton, was well experienced both at stone setting and also at expediting the learning process for all students. I think there were only two other males on the course, the remaining 5 or so were female and mostly in their twenties and thirties. The jewellery workshops at St Martins, although somewhat old-fashioned looking, were very well equipped, and especially good on traditional equipment.

Glass Fabrication course

I took a glass fabrication course with Julian Ewart and Helen Maurer as tutors at Central St Martins on 6th August 2001, financed as part of my staff development by Central YMCA. The course featured both slumping, fusing and etching of glass and resulted in a large number of pieces which I took away with me. These included the red-glass etched 'Jelf' logo and the screen-printed and embedded Greek Key design shown further up this column. I also did several versions of a seahorse pressed into powdered plaster, the resulting bed used as a slump mould for glass of varying colours and types.

Glass casting course

On 14th August 2000 I took a glass casting course at Central St Martins run by Aron McCartney, who was at that time still working on his PhD thesis concerning ceramic shell casting of glass. The course was financed as part of my staff development by Central YMCA. The course was somewhat of a disappointment for me for the first couple of days since it was organised around first making a ceramic shell bronze, something I was well familiar with. The subsequent casting of glass into a lost-wax mould lined with plaster was more interesting, I still have both the bronze and the glass casts. I remember picking out bits of castable lead-crystal glass from a large coffer until I acquired enough bits to cast.