Re: So, here's the (hopefully) next topic of debate

Martha Hughes wrote:

>
> What I want to know, where did the "veteran's" get the answers to
> their questions when they first started out? If you have such a problem
> with ignorance as a whole, what are you doing to irradicate it? How did
> you learn your craft?
>

Following is a note I wrote on 8-26-2002 in response to a posting by
Mary Lee Hu, metalsmith, goldsmith, artist, and professor at a
University in Seattle, is a list serv that went out to metal educators,
about my schooling to become a goldsmith. It's rather long. For those
of you interested, here it is (I hope the formatting doesn't get all
screwed up):

Mary Hu wrote:

>>
>> I am often trying to decide, as I design new classes or projects...how much
>> emphasis to place on technique, how much on design, how much on idea or
>> concept...
>>
>> I am a product of our American post-war metals educational system. BFA at
>> Cranbrook with Richard Thomas and MFA at SIU-Carbondale with Brent Kington.
>> I thought I was getting a great education - especially at Cranbrook...it was
>> a well respected art school wasn't it?
>>
>> When I visited some of the schools in London several years after finishing
>> school I was amazed. We were at Sir John Cass College on the day they were
>> taking a test. They had been given a design - blueprint if you will - and
>> had to complete it by the end of the day (yes, day-long classes).



This is how we often took tests in at the Goldschmiedeschule in
Pforzheim. When I got your email, I pulled out my old "Ausbildungsnachwies"
(educational record book.) A record book every student had to keep according to
some very strict rules and regulations, (even the handwriting in it was
regulated) that spans the entire three years of my education to become a
goldsmith, from day one (9-4-1973), with the first entry being "Aufnahme in die
Berufsfachschule" (Entry into the trade school part of the school for
goldsmithing) to the last day 6-23-1976, "Pruefung" (test -exam). This was the
last day of a two day exam. 16 hours in total of goldsmithing. I still have the
piece I made.

We had tests throughout the year, and twice during each year we had a so-called
"Zwischenpruefung IHK" (in between test (mid semester test?) for the Chamber of
Industry and Commerce) In quickly going over my record book, I found these
entries.

3-19-75 (This was during my second year) in the afternoon which was if I
remember correctly from 1 to 5 PM, "Go: Zurichtung fuer Zwischenpruefung"
(Goldsmithing: Preparation for in between test).

3-20-1975: Both morning and afternoon, i.e. from 8 to 12, and from 1 to 5 "Go:
Zwischenpruefung IHK" (In between test for the Chamber of Industry and
Commerce"

Our names were not put on the pieces, but were given a number. The same test
was taken by all of the students in the same year of education for goldsmith in
all of Baden-Wuerttemberg. All the pieces were collected and critiqued against
a scale and each other, for a number of criteria at a central location. As with
your example we worked off a blue print of a given design. For this particular
test, my score was 95 out of 100, which got me a grade 1.2 (In Germany 1 is the
highest possible 6 is the worst).

Throughout my education I had tests like these.



>> The less
>> advanced class was making a brooch from nickel silver - sawing out all the
>> holes where stones would be set into a flowing ribbon design. The piece
>> would be graded at the end against how exactly it fit the design - probably
>> with a caliper down to thousandths.


Sounds about right.


>> The advanced class was making a hinged
>> watch band.


In my second year at school, I made a watch case. I still have the watch. Kind
of sloppy, if you ask me now. :-)

>> I was amazed...here I was with my masters...and could I have
>> done that? I was thinking, why wasn't I taught things like this?



I think part of the answer lies in the history of the founding of this country
(the US that is). A great deal of my education and the education of all the
trades in Germany as well as in England, can be traced back directly to the days
of the guilds of the renaissance and later. The guilds were the institutions
that controlled all of the trades. Who was allowed in, i.e. be trained, how
they were trained, how they were run, etc. The good part of that was, and still
is, a guarantee of quality, of mastership, of the trades, to the buying public.
They knew, that if a master was in charge of a particular project, whether it
was making a piece of jewelry, building a house or making a cabinet, they were
dealing with someone who knew his trade, and would be able to deliver a good
piece of work. To this day in Germany, one can not open a business, unless at
least one of the owners of that business owns a "Meisterbrief" (Master's
Certificate) in one of the trades offered by that business.

Of course, the guilds were also very discriminatory. I for instance, being
Jewish, would never have been allowed to be educated in one of the trades run by
guilds. The same was true for members of other religions, or other minorities.
The people who escaped Europe, to come to this country, also escaped the tyranny
of the guilds. Unfortunately now, a couple of centuries later, we are stuck
with an educational system, that in my opinion does not work. At least not
where the trades like goldsmithing are concerned.

I know, I know, we are not teaching trades here, we are teaching "Art". Yeah,
right! But you all already know my opinion, so I am not going there again. But
ask yourselves, did Wenzel Jamnitzer ever go to art school, did Benvenuto
Cellini ever go to art school, did Titian, Goya, da Vinci, Breughel, Rembrandt?

We get ourselves thousands of overeducated art majors every year, and ... oh
***, here I go again.


>>
>> Then we went out to the entranceway where a case displayed past student work
>> - obviously things they were proud of - silver presentation cigar boxes and
>> the like full of engraved inscriptions. Excellently made, ...

Pretty much like the stuff you see in the hallway of the Goldschmiedeschule

>>stiff, dull
>> and boring...to me (a child of the 60s, US educated).

All a matter of opinion. I find that kind of work rather inspiring and
awesome. There is a beauty all of it's own in mastery of skill and technique.

>>
>> Ever since then, I have questioned - when is the best time to introduce
>> technique and how much, and when to try to get the student to develop an
>> individual sense of self, ideas, design and direction with those techniques.
>> Once tightened, can someone be loosened up?

I understand that electroshock therapy can be very useful here.

>> Once loose, can someone later
>> perfect the needed techniques?

Only if one is willing to put in the time needed to do so.

However, I do think that personal temperament and style have a great deal to do
with this also. When someone wants to work with me, either as an apprentice or
an assistant, I always ask them to bring everything they have made in the last
five years or so, so I can take a look at it. It doesn't matter if this are
drawings, photos, metal work, jewelry. Good quality or bad.

It is very unlikely, that someone who draws beautiful flowers and landscapes and
carves fabulous waxes for organic jewelry, will be a better match for me, than
someone who has tried to make a piece of jewelry out of geometric shapes and has
failed miserably because all the seams are crooked and there are gaps and pits
in every solder joint. I cannot teach the "organic person" how to see what I
see, but I can teach the "geometric thinker" how to become a better craftsman.

>>
>> I have seen teachers here in the US go in various ways - give lots of
>> freedom (tell me what you want to make and I will help you make it) - or
>> throw lots of conceptual ideas at the students using found objects and glue
>> to get them loose and thinking - or teach a technique and have everyone do a
>> project of their own design using it - or introduce a technique and have all
>> the students do a single assigned design using it - like the British school.
>>
>> Different approaches probably work better for different students (and
>> different teachers). I doubt that one can really say one is completely bad
>> - for all people and all teaching goals.
>>
>> I remember taking a workshop where the last example above was the teaching
>> style. Monkey see, monkey do.


That's an expression I use a lot when I teach an assistant. Watch what I do, if
you cannot see what I do, you cannot repeat it. If you cannot see your
mistakes, you cannot fix them. And it is very important to make the mistakes
also. You learn more from failure than from success.


>> It was about the most wonderful workshop I
>> have ever taken!!! Al Ching brought in Satsuo Ando, a Japanese master of
>> chasing and engraving with the Japanese style chasing tools. We watched him
>> make a tool, we made it. We watched him use it to do X and we all tried to
>> do X. It was either good as it was just like his or not good as it was not.
>> By the end of the two weeks, we started not doing things exactly like his
>> example - because, being Americans, we just HAD to be original. But we did
>> learn a lot in a short time. Of course, we were all totally committed to
>> the field by then. Not students looking around, trying to decide what they
>> liked doing.


I did not become a goldsmith in school, I already was goldsmith, when I entered
goldsmithing school in Pforzheim. BTW, this is something I only found out
later, I did not know this then.

I think in life the natural way of development is "Be-Do-Have". Take for
instance things we have all done in life, like taking piano lessons, or ballet
classes, Little League baseball. That was different, more along the lines of
"Have-Do-Be", meaning get the tutu and the ballet slippers (Have), take lessons
and rehearse (Do) and you will become a dancer (Be). We all know, that this
doesn't work, and we have all done it more than once during our life.

With the model of Be-Do-Have, it is exactly the other way around. I am a
goldsmith, therefore I will seek out teachers and do goldsmithing, and get the
stuff I need to get to be a good goldsmith. Tiger Woods was a golfer at age
four. Jehudi Menuhin was a violinist at age 6.

I remember, George Leonard wrote a wonderful article about "mastery" some years
ago for Esquire Magazine. I still have a copy of it somewhere. I don't want to
write from memory, because I would only get it wrong, I'll look it up.


>> Too many young people these days need instant
>> gratification...

No ***!

>> and sending a student back over and over to get the angle
>> just right on the engraving chisels is risking having them quit.

So what. Have them quit. The ones that don't are worth your attention. You
have to find a way to make them understand that getting it just right is
important, especially when it comes to engraving chisels. Take a look at the
work of Steven Lindsay, one of the finest hand engravers in the US today. Look
at his work and tell me that it doesn't make your mouth drop. His site is at
http://www.lindsayengraving.com/index.html And the love and respect he has for
his tools is also awe inspiring. Take a took at his shop at
http://www.lindsayengraving.com/tour/index.html He also maintains a site at
http://www.EngravingSchool.com/, which is devoted to the teaching of hand
engraving. This site has a great links page.

Also take a look at the work of Adone Tiz Pozzobon at
http://www.engravingarts.net/gallery_knife_engraving.html
(Home page: http://www.engravingarts.net/main.html) Gives new meaning to the
term so loosely used in the US, ... "master".


>>
>> Over the years I have experimented with how I teach - but mostly have stayed
>> within the third example for the entry level courses. Classes are mostly
>> technique centered, with assignments then defined loosely so that there is
>> enough flexibility (I hope) to allow students to interpret them in a
>> personally interesting or even exciting direction. But they have to show
>> they understand and can do the required process.
>>
>> I think the person I pattern my teaching style after the most is Fred
>> Fenster. I was able to observe Fred teach when I was fortunate enough to be
>> taking over for Eleanor Moty one year at Madison while she was on leave. I
>> sat in on Fred's beginning class demonstrations and I cannot tell you how
>> much I learned. He explained things so clearly, introduced things in a
>> logical manner, demonstrated things for the students. My beginning classes
>> had not had this type of teaching. It was more of a dive in and learn from
>> each other experience.
>>
>> I would really be interested in the type of classes Abrasha had at
>> Pforzheim?

We pretty much did it all. See below.

>> How many years was the course?

Two years of schooling. After this a one year apprenticeship in a firm, which
ended with a state exam which certified me as a "Juwelengoldschmied Geselle"
(Journeyman Goldsmith)

>> What subjects were taken -
>> within metals and also non-metals or non-art? How long were the classes?

Goldsmithing, Silversmithing (much less), Stone setting, Engraving, Enameling,
Engine turning (Guilloche), Sculpture, Gemology, Jewelry related math, Geometric
drawing , "Free" Drawing, Material knowledge (Werkstoffkunde), Work practices
(Arbeitskunde), Art history, Economics, Sociology, German.

The first year we had three times four hours of goldsmithing. The second year
four times. All the other practical classes like silversmithing, engraving,
stone setting were 4 hours each, and classes like drawing were shorter, the
theoretical classes were one hour or 45 minute classes, I don't remember
which.

>> How many teachers did you have - one person to teach everything, or
>> specialists brought in to teach their specialty only?

Specialists only. they were not brought in, they mostly worked full time at the
school. They were all masters in each of their fields. In Germany you have to
be a master in a trade in order to be allowed to teach others in a trade.


>> Did you study both
>> hollowware and jewelry, or only jewelry?

Both. However, the amount of silversmithing (as it was called in Germany) was
rather minimal and only exposing us to the two basic techniques of raising and
sinking and doing a couple of very basic projects. A cup and a chalice, in my
case. I never finished the chalice, still have the parts. The teacher was sick
a lot that year.


>> (In some of the British schools I
>> visited, one had to choose and only study one or the other).
>>
>> Then, within jewelry, how were the techniques introduced - demos and a
>> design that everyone had to do exactly?, or were you designing the things
>> you made?


We designed nothing. We got drawings of what we had to make. The teacher would
explain on the black board. Demos were usually given. I remember having a lot
of difficulty "getting it" with how to make a good bright cut next to a stone in
a bezel setting. My teacher kept trying to explain something in words, which
cannot be explained in words. How to get the "feeling" for sharpening and
polishing your graver just right so it just glides easily over the metal, barely
cutting it. I figured it out 20 years later.


>> What subjects/techniques were taught...I am sure basic
>> benchworking and stonesetting, but what else? chasing, casting, engraving,
>> etching, enameling, lapidary, filigree, chainmaking, etc, etc, etc.
>>

In school I did not do etching, lapidary, and filigree, however, these skills
were available within the teaching faculty

>> I am especially interested in the way some of the very basic things were
>> taught - like for instance filing.

We did nothing else, but laying out, drilling, sawing and filing for the first
full three months of my education. I repeat THREE MONTHS. My first
goldsmithing class test started in the 11th week. The test was spread over
three classes, 12 hours. The test is described in my Record Book as "layout,
drilling, sawing, filing". A week later we did our first "in between test" for
the Chamber of Industry and Commerce; again layout, drilling, sawing and filing.
This time with a little soldering thrown in at the end to nicely screw up the
piece.

>> This has been one of the hardest things
>> for me to teach students to do well.

It IS one of the hardest things to do well.

>>
>> Oh yes, Abrasha asked me what I considered to be a good student.

I did? I don't remember that. Are you sure that was me?

>> In my mind
>> a good student is one who is proactive about learning. One who reaches out
>> to learn - pushes, stretches.

I agree. My last student and later assistant, had a full time job when he came
to me. He worked with me on his days off. I had said that I would teach him,
but that I was not interested in hiring him. He took my offer.

>> One who does not keep asking if it is done
>> yet. One who does not just do the minimum assigned. One who devises new
>> learning experiences for him or herself and will keep doing that after
>> leaving school.
>>

Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com






.