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A salute to those craftsmen who were…A devil with a hammer and hell with a torch.

(Robert Willams,1972)

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I grew up as the only child to a custom car builder. The above quote is from a poster that still hangs on the wall of my father’s body shop. My dad voraciously made me aware that a person should be known for their craftsmanship and how to properly tri fold a piece of 600 grit sandpaper at 7 years old. I grew up watching large metal being contorted and moved at will. Each piece fitting perfectly and even areas unseen would be finished on the chance someone would uncover them.  When I took my first Metals class I spent countless hours in the lab trying to understand and emulate everything my professor had taught that day. I now walk into my own classroom after hours and witness the same tenacious students. I love teaching because it’s passing on a tradition of learned skills, igniting imagination and embracing materials and concepts not yet explored.

Many of my students are non-art majors and some have never had an art class. I teach as though Metals is a major at the school. I want my students to return for second level Metals and learn new techniques. I also want students to be prepared to move into a jewelry program and be confident and competitive in their skills. With so many students never having had classes in design, I include everything in their first project. The “Letterform Project”, is very structured but still allows artistic freedom. I explain how to develop a concept and turn it into a design as this can be as terrifying as math for some. Students learn how to cut, file, sand, texture, sweat solder, vertical solder, functional and decorative tube and wire rivets, and all of the chemicals. Every skill has a certain number of times it must be used in the project which adds diversity and difficulty to the work.

Metals is a class that offers a unique opportunity for students to learn problem solving. In my first classes of undergraduate Metals I often heard about this, “design opportunity”, when there was an issue with a build.  I have truly embraced this notion because it keeps my students moving forward and working in a positive way with something that could be seen as a negative. 

I am constantly looking for new ways to connect with my students; new ways to make them excited about the materials and techniques. I’ve been encourage by past students to write a book about techniques for beginners which I began in October of 2015. I’m also excited that I am in classes for American Sign Language so that I may engage with my hearing impaired students one on one.

In teaching everything must be student oriented. How can I push them further? How can I reach them? How can I teach them more? This is why I refer to them as my “kids”.

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