Re: A necklace I am proud of :)

Charlie Johns wrote:
> Mr. Rowe,
> I have been interested in the lapidary arts for some time now and have been
> privilaged to meet and learn from some fine people. I found your newsgroup,
> read it with some regularity, and have learned more.

"your newsgroup"? Interesting way of putting this. Just in case you
did not know sir, this is Usenet. This is where the Net started so many
years ago. This is not a private bulletin board.

>
> Some of the things I learned I really didn't want to know. [the thread A
> necklace I am proud of]

What a crock and a lie! This thread has been going on for almost two
weeks now, longer than any thread over the past several years. And
obviously you have been reading it, voluntarily I presume. Or did
someone put a gun to your head to make you read it?

>
> Mr. Abrasha

Please don't call me "Mr." Abrasha. Makes me feel like a hairdresser.

> is a talented man from what I see on his web site,

thank you.

> but
> unfortunately we can't all go to school in Germany for two years and be
> coddled by a master jeweler.

You don't know what you are talking about. Coddled you say. It was
beaten into me, the German way! (The Prussian way?) Almost literally.
Some of my work as an apprentice, ended up in between my master's anvil
and his large forging hammer. If I didn't get it right the first time,
I got to do it over until I did get it right.

And btw, schooling in Germany (at least at the time) was free for me, as
a Dutch citizen, a member country of the EC.

My first employer after my apprenticeship and certification as a
goldsmith was the late Professor Klaus Ullrich. I had wanted to work
for him ever since my friend Alan Rosenberg, who worked for him, had
introduced me to him.

One day, a few days after I had received a DM .25 raise, and the day
after I had screwed up a part of a major bracelet he had to take to a
show in Duesseldorf, for which he was to leave in a few days, I came to
work in his shop and found a note on my bench. It said something like,
"You last chance to get it right. You screw up again, you're out".

How's that for coddled?

The bottom line is. Germans produce great craftsmen. The
apprenticeship program at Mercedes Benz at the time was legendary.

"The work produced by students in the second year of the
Goldschmiedeschule in Pforzheim (where I went to school), is far
superior in craftsmanship than anything produced by goldsmiths in this
country who have been at the bench for 15 years." This statement was
made by a person who used to work at a jewelry gallery in the US, upon
seeing the work by students at that school, exhibited in the lobby of
the school.

If you don't believe that, I suggest you travel there and see for
yourself. Although I question your ability to see the quality in true
craftsmanship.

It is in fact a sad statement, that anyone who is older than maybe 3 to
5 years and out of diapers, would take the trouble to put a necklace
like that online, than take the trouble to subscribe to a newsgroup to
which (s)he has never posted before and then announce in the newsgroup
that (s)he is proud of his (her) accomplishment.

It took 5 hours. Well whoopeeee! It took me 300 hours to do this:
http://www.abrasha.com/slideshow/judaica/menorah%20lit.htm


SNIP

>
> The inclusion of "A Confession" really put the lid on my pot.

Huh, What does that mean?

> I get the
> feeling he should have signed it since it seems to express his ego so well.

Interesting how you chose to read Picasso's "A Confession", but
apparently did not bother to look at my "Process" pages, and/or my
"Video" page. Or chose not to mention it.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

.

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