[Jewelry making - Article 00316] - Re: [Orchid] Article: Minimal Metalsmithing

[James Binnion]

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    There is beautiful jewelry made with PMC and there is crappy work
    made in traditional metalsmithing techniques. Beauty and artistic
    expression are not defined by the materials that are used in the
    creation of the work. 

    However for many of us PMC is synthetic metalwork. 

    Modeling PMC is to traditionally metalsmithing what a Chatham emerald
    is to a natural gem. Like the synthetic gem and the natural one you
    can have a beautiful or ugly resulting piece. Like the synthetic and
    natural stone both pieces of work are made of the same material and
    both would take laboratory tests to conclusively prove the origin.
    The difference is in the rarity. Currently PMC is marketed and
    extolled by its devotees for its ease of use and speed in creating
    things that look like you made it by traditional techniques. The
    unspoken message is that you don't need to put in all the time or pay
    any of the dues required to make it using the traditional techniques
    "anyone can do it". So is it surprising that those that have
    dedicated their career or their precious time off to learning and
    perfecting traditional metalsmithing would react in a negative
    fashion to a medium that presents itself as being so easy to work its
    "just like play dough" as I recently saw on one website offering
    instruction in PMC. 

Jim

James Binnion
jbin AT mokume-gane.com
James Binnion Metal Arts
http://www.mokume-gane.com
360-756-6550
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