making jewelry

Hi, I just joined the group. I am so interested in making sterling
silver jewelry and would like to know if anyone knows a school/
organization on Long Island, NY that teaches metalsmithing. I would
like perhaps an adult education course or a low cost part time/1Xweek
program. I would really appreciate this information. Thanks!

On Jul 18, 10:52=A0pm, wrote:
Hi, I just joined the group. =A0I am so interested in making sterling
silver jewelry and would like to know if anyone knows a school/
organization on Long Island, NY that teaches metalsmithing. =A0I would
like perhaps an adult education course or a low cost part time/1Xweek
program. =A0I would really appreciate this information. =A0Thanks!

I can't speak for LI, but I got my first exposure taking "Jewelry 1"
at a community college.

Look for a Gem and Mineral club near you. American Federation of
Mineralogical Societies has list by region.

http://www.amfed.org/

John

www.rasmussengems.com

I have been waiting for about 5 days now but the shipping times are 10-19 days. As soon as I get them I will let you know. I have not seen you on that forum for a long time now and I was wondering where you are? How did it go with the collection that you got? Here is the link to the beads again http://www.liangdianup.com/beadscrafts_1.htm and here is the link to the Swarovski beads http://www.liangdianup.com/inventory/900020.htm if those links don't work then you can goto www.lducompany.com and click on the beads picture, that should take you right there. I hope you see this message and get back to me cause I miss talking to you

Good luck starting with making jewelry. I've done a bit myself and its
always rewarding. I've never had a 'thing' for professional classes -
they've seemed a bit pretentious. One resource I find VERY helpful is
anything done by Tim McCreight. He is definitely one of the best
teachers out there. His introductory book, "Jewelry: Fundamentals of
Metalsmithing" is a good help. He also has a 'Complete Metalsmith'
book that is an AWESOME bench reference. A bit more complex, but its
good to grow.

His videos are also a really valuable resource. His best, 'Complete
Metalsmith with Tim McCreight' can be rented he

http://smartflix.com/store/video/389...-Tim-McCreight

Good luck!

On Jul 18, 10:52 pm, wrote:
Hi, I just joined the group. I am so interested in making sterling
silver jewelry and would like to know if anyone knows a school/
organization on Long Island, NY that teaches metalsmithing. I would
like perhaps an adult education course or a low cost part time/1Xweek
program. I would really appreciate this information. Thanks!

wrote:
I've never had a 'thing' for professional classes -
they've seemed a bit pretentious.

Never had a "thing" for professional classes, because they seemed a bit
"pretentious"?

That's an interesting statement coming from a person using the moniker
"maximus"

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:40:07 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry Abrasha
wrote:

wrote:
I've never had a 'thing' for professional classes -
they've seemed a bit pretentious.

Never had a "thing" for professional classes, because they seemed a bit
"pretentious"?

That's an interesting statement coming from a person using the moniker
"maximus"

I'm kind of thinking that, inspired by principals of olympic athletics, he wants
to keep his skill level at an amateur level... :-)

More seriously, as I see it, if a class comes off as being overly pretentious,
one should find another teacher. While one can learn a lot from books, for
much of jewelry making, there's nothing as effective as live, in person,
instruction to show you the right way to do a thing. If you look through the
history of this group or other jewelry discussion forums, you'll find a lot of
people who've been trying to learn some skill or other, often from books, asking
questions that would never have come up had they been learning in person from a
decent instructor, simply because then the questions would have been simply and
immediately answered. Books, for all the wonderful good they can offer, are
sometimes just not as good when it comes to manual skills and procedures where a
live and interactive demo, or a live critique of what you're doing, can cover in
seconds what whole chapters try to cover in a book... A case in point is
nicely illustrated on the Orchid forum, where at this moment, a discussion
thread has been going on now for about two weeks, started by one such beginner
who's having trouble getting her solder to flow properly, and can't figure out
what she's doing wrong. Two weeks with many posts from helpful people, lots of
thoughts and answers, but so far, she's not solved her problem. If she were
here, or in Abrasha's studio with that problem and he or I or another such
person watching her try to solder, the problem would have been solved in a
minute or two as we saw what was being done wrong. Now, I don't know about Mr.
maximus, but if I were trying to learn a skill, somehow the effectiveness of a
good class, and the time saving's and saving's in wasted effort and frayed
nerves would far outweight any bruised egos in the unusual event that the
instructor were making a point of portraying themselves as a professional or
somehow otherwise seeming too pretentious...

Peter

Sandy,

I am a good example of the book learned smith. I was also fortunate
to work on a bench next to a seasoned silversmith. I cannot agree
more with Abrasha and Peter. It has taken me many more years to
develop the skill levels using books and many errors.

Many cities provide jewelry classes through their Parks and Rec
programs.

Fred

On Aug 8, 10:54 pm, "Peter W.. Rowe,"
wrote:
On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:40:07 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry Abrasha

wrote:
wrote:
I've never had a 'thing' for professional classes -
they've seemed a bit pretentious.

Never had a "thing" for professional classes, because they seemed a bit
"pretentious"?

That's an interesting statement coming from a person using the moniker
"maximus"

[...]

More seriously, as I see it, if a class comes off as being overly pretentious,
one should find another teacher. While one can learn a lot from books, for
much of jewelry making, there's nothing as effective as live, in person,
instruction to show you the right way to do a thing. If you look through the
history of this group or other jewelry discussion forums, you'll find a lot of
people who've been trying to learn some skill or other, often from books, asking
questions that would never have come up had they been learning in person from a
decent instructor, simply because then the questions would have been simply and
immediately answered.

I'm not a metal smith, but I see both sides of this, and I think
Peter's reply hits the proverbial nail on the head. I have seen pretentious
(beading) classes, and I have fallen into the trap (wire wrapping and lampwork)
to try to make "the same thing over" - other than just for practice. I
find that classes can kill your creativity (for a while), so if you find that
happening to you, just do something different for a while. If you have good
teachers you can always go back and ask another question later. You can't do
that with a book.

I'll admit that I never read a book, most of the ones I saw are too
much "take 1 dozen beads of this kind", and I don't need to be told what
the piece I'm trying to make is supposed to look like in the end. Just
techniques. A lot of that (at least for beading and wire work) can be found on
the 'net, and, I've been told, some pretty good tutorials on youtube (haven't
taken the time for that yet).

Aloha,
Maren
HiloBeads: Beads - Beading Supplies - Hand-made Jewelry
http://www.hilobeads.com/
Blog at: http://hilobeads.blogspot.com/

On Jul 18, 10:52*pm, wrote:
Hi, I just joined the group. *I am so interested in making sterling
silver jewelry and would like to know if anyone knows a school/
organization on Long Island, NY that teaches metalsmithing. *I would
like perhaps an adult education course or a low cost part time/1Xweek
program. *I would really appreciate this information. *Thanks!

I hope you'll forgive a brief plug:
I manage the video library at SmartFlix.com. We're now in our fourth
year of renting out instructional and craft videos online, and
delivering them via first class mail to your door.
We carry videos on metalsmithing and Silver jewelry making

Three videos on this topic and are well reviewed a

1. Tim McCreight's "The Complete Metalsmith with Tim McCreight".
Customers have said that this is a great overview of jewelry
techniques, perfect for the beginner.


http://smartflix.com/store/video/389...-Tim-McCreight

2. Spider's "Weaving Silver Series". This is another highly
recommended beginner dvd. "Spider is an excellent instructor. She
gives clear, precise directions for creating each weave, and
illustrates each one well."

http://smartflix.com/store/video/608/Weaving-Silver

Although this pertains to Gold you might be able to apply the
information to silver.
3. Alan Revere's "Revere On Goldsmithing". This a wonderful dvd that
goes
from beginning to intermediate levels.

http://smartflix.com/store/author/990/Alan-Revere


I hope this will be helpful and informative.
Susanc