Teaching Oneself

I need to dig deep and remember my lessons …

by Loretta Fontaine

elf-taught” is a misnomer. Most of us have at least books or workshops that have guided the development of our art. No formal degree in your craft? A degree can propel your skills forward and widen your opportunities; but there are many twisting paths to artistic success.

While studying Middle Eastern dance 20 years ago, Bremerton, Wash., artist Kat West discovered beading while embellishing dance costumes. In 2001, beaded jewelry be-came an obsession, and she taught herself off-loom techniques for her intricate and eclectic necklaces. While tearing up a piece of beadwork for the third time, she found herself thinking, “She who teaches herself has a fool for a master.” “But I found when I finally took some advanced classes,” she says, “I was able to hold my own quite well, and I developed my own style without having to wean myself from someone’s influence. It has instilled me with an uncharacteristic self confidence in my beading abilities.”

Illustration by Dave Fontaine

Judy Dunn, of Acton, Mass., learned the art of polymer clay from books and articles. She’d been folding cranes with paper and wondered about folding an origami crane with the clay. She figured out a way to do it and demonstrated the technique at a polymer clay retreat in Connecticut. “The veterans [of polymer clay] were left sitting with their mouths wide open,” she recalls. “I apparently did something that ‘couldn’t be done.’ If I’d asked someone, I might not have tried. But working on my own, there was no one to dissuade me from my mission!”

My degrees are in architecture, so I feel I’ve always had a solid background in art and design. But it’s the technical skills in metal that often vex me. My first primitive necklace was made with roofing copper, tin snips and plumbing solder. Trial and error taught me my craft, along with one six-session beginning jewelry class at a local arts center. The bulk of my training has been with books. Tim McCreight doesn’t realize it, but he’s been my number one teacher. I’ve referenced his book “The Complete Metalsmith” over and over again.

I know that being primarily self-taught can be an advantage. I often find innovative and creative solutions to problems I face. My studio is a bit of a mad scientist’s lab. A visit to a New York City sculptor’s supply Web site inspired me to purchase a whole slew of strange new materials to experiment with.

But being self-taught has disadvantages. Often I’m stuck with a sticky soldering situation and beat myself up thinking, “Yikes! If I had formal training in metalsmithing I wouldn’t be taking forever and a day to do this or, worse, wouldn’t be melting my work into a molten mass of metal.”

I took a cooking class once and watched the chef, Andrew Plummer, blow away my ideas about cooking. It happened that night that his restaurant was short one chef, so he was forced to teach the class and cook the restaurant customer’s orders at the same time. He was calmly tossing food around, measuring nothing, and cooking over one dozen elaborate meals at once. The timing of the ovens and sauté pans was done in his head. I was amazed. This immersion in his work was the difference between the amateur and the professional.

I had the same reaction when I took a lesson from James Strope, a seasoned bench jeweler. Unlike the careful 1, 2, 3 steps I had learned in books, he approached his craft as the chef I’d watched. He showed me wild shortcuts. Why wait for pickle to take the oxides off a soldered piece? Just apply dollops of flux and torch the piece to near death! Of course, everything the chef cooked was amazingly delicious, and the final work of this jeweler was amazingly beautiful!

When I beat myself up over my soldering skills I have to remember that I know enough to get through it. I need to dig deep and remember my lessons about the flow of heat, and use of heat sinks, and keep working until I get it right. A good artist is going to make mistakes as they develop better skills, whether self-taught or not!