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Hammer Time! A Guide to Every Smith’s Favorite Tool
Whether they work big or small, ferrous or nonferrous, if you ask any smith their favorite hammer, they’ll have an answer! This essential tool plays so many different roles (and goes by so many different names!) in the metals studio, and if used correctly should feel like an extension of your body.
In this lecture & demo-based virtual primer, we will learn about the various hammer “families” and the names of the specific hammers that fall within each of them. With demonstrations, slides, and discussion we’ll focus on each hammer’s specific uses, and how to choose the one (or more) that’s right for you.
Last, we’ll talk about proper hammer storage and restoration of damaged hammers. Proper ergonomics while performing various hammering tasks will be addressed throughout.
Meet the instructor
Kristin Mitsu Shiga is a hapa metalsmith, educator and arts administrator who has played a variety of roles in the arts since 1992. You may recognize her as the ringmaster of Metalwerx’s annual Virtual Spring Symposium!
From a long line of educators, Kristin is passionate about teaching and has had the opportunity to share with students at venues all over North America including Penland, Arrowmont and Haystack Mountain schools of craft. Her proudest achievements have been establishing nonprofit metalsmiting studios and programs that continue today in New York (OCM BOCES), Oregon (Multnomah Arts Center), and Hawai'i (Donkey Mill Arts Center).
As a maker, Kristin pursues projects that tell a story and actively engage her audience. Her solo work centers around one-of-a-kind wearable art and holloware with an aesthetic that has been described as a "marriage between her Japanese heritage and influences from her early explorations in architecture and the Modernist design movement." Her ongoing series, "Unfinished, Damaged & Broken" explores the significance of age and wear on common objects while protecting, bolstering or celebrating their hard-won imperfections.
Kristin has shown her work internationally, and is included in several notable collections, including the Kamm Artful Teapot Collection and the Permanent Collection of the White House. You will find her work published in numerous books and magazines, including Art Jewelry Today, The Art of Enameling, Metalsmith’s 2017 Exhibition in Print, and several of Lark’s 500 Series books. Learn more about Kristin’s past work on Oregon Artbeat (segment originally aired in 2010).
Materials & Tools
This workshop does not require the purchase of any supplies or materials to participate. A list of the hammers shown and recommended by the instructor will be provided to registered students with class recordings. We recommend having materials for note-taking.