[Jewelry making - Article 00186] - Re: [Orchid] Article: Minimal Metalsmithing

[Marty Hykin]

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Hello Nanz,

    I am replying to your post on PMC's deficiencies. I have never used
    the stuff. Therefore my response is not nearly as informed as yours -
    but your take on it confirms my intuitions and i am very happy to
    have the benefit of your experience rather than only of my own
    prejudice. Writing more as a woodworker than as a jeweller, I found
    your analogy with MDF vs. solid wood to be most apt. Yes you can make
    things out of MDF which look as though they've been made of wood -
    but they don't behave as wood. And similarly with PMC and solid
    metal. 

    The forms which which metal or wood objects take have evolved over
    thousands of years by working with those materials and their
    intrinsic properties, both their virtues and their limitations.
    Imitating those forms with a different material produces objects
    which are is some deep way senseless and even (to me) somewhat
    offensive, no matter whether they are good imitations in surface
    appearance. 

    I might feel just a bit more charitable towards PMC if people used
    it more or less analogously to a ceramic rather than trying to make
    it look like a material with which it shares few intrinsic 
properties.
    If I'd ever had any interest in being a potter I suppose the stuff
    would appeal to me. 

    My own designs, in whatever material, always feel better to me if
    they evolve in harmonious relation with the material, ergo a metal
    chair looks different than a wooden chair. 

    I thought I'd write "off-line" so to speak as i have the
    uncomfortable feeling that you will be getting a lot of negative
    response to your post. There is a lot of money being made selling
    this goop to people who think of themselves as instant metalsmiths.
    While I am happy to support your point of view in public as well as
    in private, I am not up for another round of flaming. I'm going to
    sit back for this round and watch the mud fly - hoping not to be
    provoked into joining the melee. 

Best wishes,
Marty Hykin - In Victoria BC - being a woodworker this week
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