The Agony of Not Doing it All

Reflections on my failures in metalsmithing

This is a quick one, dear reader, as I am waking up on left coast time to film a brand-new online course. My head is full of things like bezel depths, perfect tweezers, and proposing questions like, what is jewelry if not a mobile art gallery? Yep. I am finally adding a jewelry category to my library of learning at Mosaic Arts Online. It will launch in a few months so keep your ears and eyes perked for what happens when my signature Intuitive system is paired with wearable art. Exciting stuff.

Which has me thinking on one of this decade’s biggest studio failures.

---

You may consider becoming a free or paid subscriber this winter. There will be an open call for Ruins art in the form of a new group collaboration sometime after the holidays. The number of artists accepted will be limited and PAID subscribers get first chance to join the party.

Past examples of this have been The Ruins Beehive and The Patch House Project.

---

I keep not becoming a metalsmith.

One would think that it would have been a natural, elegant evolution. As easy as stepping backwards into the opening of the gymnasium pool floor like Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life. An easy step, by accident even, into a shocking new world. But for me the accidental baptism would be fire, not water.

I already have the fire in hand. I use my torch with the ease of long practice. I already have the hammering in hand. A girl can never have too many hammers is one of my favorite lines after all. I already have the attention to detail in hand. Nothing teaches the eye to pick up nuance like micro mosaic work.

So, what’s the problem? Laziness?

I don’t think that’s quite it. But it may be RESISTANCE.

I am a project hopper, often working on several things at once. Like a studio chipmunk, always darting between rock crevices, looking for the next nut before the last nut has been properly stored away. I joke that even though it looks like chaos, things still get done. One of the perks of reaching my halfway to dead decade is that I have learned to embrace my quirks. Resisting our natures rarely works long term. Better to burrow into what feels right already and make it work.

But that possibly very flawed thinking has not worked for me becoming a metalsmith.

I am not soldering away, connecting bails to bezels, annealing and tempering. I may know the definitions of flux and forge, but I am not putting them into practice. I keep hammering around the edges of the art. I hammer everything. Hand-hammered verdigris copper earrings and purchased bezels that I spend time making look like they are hand forged. I am playing at being a metalsmith without making the genuine commitment.

It’s maddening.

But at the same time, it’s the path I have chosen. Maybe this little bit of confession to you will help me step into the pool. I know the water is fine. But I keep resisting that first, shocking change. Being in the uncomfortableness of not already being good at a thing. Maybe that is the deeper resistance. To paraphrase one of my favorite teachers from afar, resistance is a bitch.

And now, I want to introduce you to a real metalsmith, doing the work. Aileen Lampman of AI Jewelry lives up on the mountain, about an hour from The Ruins and creates fine-tuned, elegant silver jewelry paired with mosaic using her blacksmith great grandfather’s anvil. Aileen came to her marriage of metal and mosaic from the opposite side. She educated herself early in the metal arts and came to mosaic later. I adore seeing slivers of Ruins red dog appear in her gorgeous landscapes. She taught me to make ear wires. I taught her to pull intuitive malmishchiato.

I look to Aileen as proof that my resistance is all that holds me back. The world is not against me. It’s my own damn self.

AI Jewlery. Award winning pieces that are the definition of wearable art.

But this week, I am a mosaicist teaching very mosaic things. And I am very, very happy. I can’t wait for you to see what comes from this week of filming.

Until next week,

Some days with a hammer, some days with a shovel. And some days with torch.

Behind the camera at Mosaic Arts Online this week.