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Vessels: Make a Bowl in a Weekend!
Raise a bowl in a just three days using hammers and stakes. Students will learn how to use a hammer in a way that it will do the work for you. Participants will start with a 5" - 8" disc of copper, bronze, or sterling silver, and make a bowl by the end of the weekend. Cynthia will demonstrate sinking, angle raising, crimp raising, and planishing. The workshop is open to artists of all levels. Beginners may choose to complete a simple bowl with a flat bottom. More advanced students may work on complex bowls, and explore different options for rims, making a hammered "foot", or constructing bases.
Meet the instructor
Whether using hammers and stakes, or hydraulic press tools, Cynthia's sculptural jewelry and hollowware shows her focus on exploring the fluidity with which metal can be moved, formed, and joined.
Cynthia Eid co-authored the book Creative Metal Forming, with Betty Helen Longhi, published in 2013 by Tim McCreight's Brynmorgen Press. In his foreword for the book, Michael Good says the authors "have succeeded in assembling the first comprehensive textbook on synclastic and anticlastic forming." (More about the book available at www.creativemetalforming.com.)
Cynthia and Betty developed a set of anticlastic stakes, and Eid also works with Knew Concepts and Bonny Doon to help make tools for jewelers and metalsmiths. Lee Marshall has dubbed Cynthia Eid "Godmother of the Knew Concept Saws" since it was her idea for him to produce these saws for jewelers.
Excited about working in sterling silver without the problem of firescale, Cynthia has been working with Argentium Silver since 1999. After meeting Peter Johns (the inventor of Argentium Silver) in 2003, Eid has participated in AS's development. Argentium International, Ltd recognizes her as a Pioneer.
Cynthia Eid's metalwork has won awards for creativity and design, been featured in many publications, and been exhibited internationally. With a BS in Art Education and MFA in Jewelry, Design, and Silversmithing, she has previously worked as a bench jeweler for fine goldsmiths, a model-maker in a gold jewelry factory, and on private commissions. Her work is in museums in the US and UK. Currently an independent metalsmith and educator, she teaches weekly classes at Metalwerx in Massachusetts, and workshops and short courses in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.
Materials & Tools
The instructor will have 18 gauge copper available for students to purchase, and cut into a disc. Students may choose to bring their own bronze, NuGold, red brass, Argentium Sterling Silver, or traditional sterling silver for their bowl. (Yellow brass, nickel silver, pewter, and titanium are amongst the metals that are either too hard or too soft for this workshop.)
Metalwerx has the tools and equipment for shared use, but if you have any of the following, please feel free to bring them to class:
- Participants may wish to bring appropriate hammers that they have, such as raising, forming, and planishing hammers.
- Some people like to wear a pair of well-fitting gloves---to improve grip on metal and hammer, and reduce vibrations. These can be leather gloves or plastic gardening gloves.
- 6" #2 file
- Paper, pencil, ruler
- Fine tipped permanent marker (such as a Sharpie)