[Jewelry making - Article 00518] - Re: [Orchid] Milling your own or buying stock

[John Donivan]

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>     semantics. perhaps, but to depend on a supplier for your lifeblood
>     seems like one is missing the mark of the range of sciences and
>     arts it takes to call oneself a goldsmith 

    I had an epiphany yesterday, and I must apologize to all. I just
    didn't get it. That was that many who call themselves "metalsmiths"
    think of working metal, and gold in particular, as something akin to
    working wood. You get a board, saw it, bend it, bond it to other
    boards - all sorts of cool things, and in the end you get a
    Chippendale chair, one of the highest forms of art ever created. In
    that context, brass is like pine, silver is like oak, and gold is
    like ebony or whatever you like for an analogy. And, in that context
    "Of course I'm a goldsmith, I use ebony all the time, or maybe I'll
    use oak when I need to - it's all the same, that's why I'm a
    METALsmith". And that's true. I really didn't understand the mindset,
    which is a huge source of misunderstanding, and I truly apologize.
    And perhaps I can offer an epiphany in return - gold is the most
    malleable metal of all, by far. Things can be done in gold that are
    simply not possible in brass, especially, and silver too, for that
    very reason - not because we don't know how but because the metal
    just can't do it. I can't speak for everybody working in gold,
    obviously, but I can speak for the tradition of goldsmithing, of
    which I am a proud member, and what people will likely find when
    walking into a typical gold workshop, and that is that we think of
    gold as clay, not wood. There's no either/or - people make what they
    make how they want - I'm not trying to mess with that. I just finally
    realized why "metalsmiths" come up against a brick wall in a gold
    shop, and that's pretty much it, I think. And that's why I said what
    started this whole thing, innocuously enough - you need to get up to
    speed on the rolling mill, in gold. 

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com
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