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I was kindly invited to participate in an enamelling and jewellery course that was taught by one of the students in the department (Kathy Vones) in Kensington and Chelsea College.
Last summer some research on late nineteenth century pottery painting introduced me to enamel painting on glass and porcelain, but I knew very little about the material, in particular how to make it. So I was a real amateur in this field. I didn’t even have a wikipedia-level of knowledge.
When we arrived Kathy invited her students to explain the basic principles of the skill, which included an assertion of the essential importance of preparing the copper through laborious amounts of cleaning. The basic processes of enamelling were explained: clean the copper of grease completely, apply klyr fire with a small brush (an adhesive used for the enamelling arts) upon which enamel powders made from ground glass are lightly spread. After this has dried completely you melt the piece in the oven (set at about 800 degress celcius), thus producing the enamel. For more on this you can go to wikipedia.
So the first thing I had to do was to spend a considerable amount of time cleaning the copper sample (dimensions of 20mm square) from grease. I’d picked up samples of copper from a scrap bin in the metalwork department so they were very greasy and scratched. To degrease you have to run the copper under water and clean with a glass brush that comes in the form of a small cylindrical pencil which is exposed as you unwrap the rubber seal. You have to keep scrubbing away until the water that you run over the copper runs free off the plate without there being evidence of any oil. Much patience was needed as the sharp flecks of glass penetrated my finger like so many thorns, but I was distracted from this repetitive task from chats with the other members of the class – one of whom was talking about her enjoyment in the process of creating enamelled works over witnessing the final result. Thinking that I should be doing some investigative research for my project I asked her lots of quuestion about her piece, but she calmly answered with an economy of words that was testament to letting her work be.
I was at the sink getting bubbly, crinkly fingers for about 30 minutes. Scrubbing, talking, and scrubbing again. The process is long because you have to make sure your hands when holding the small sample do not grease up the parts of the enamel that you have just cleaned. Also, you have to hold this small scrap of copper really tight which locks your hand into an uncomfortable position. Thankfully Kathy relieved me from my incessant cleaning that was soon to imperil my hand with permanent pins and needles!
Finally, my sample was clean enough. Next, the klyr fire, which I initially applied too heavily. This meant the glue spilled on to the newspaper and this was no good as it would cause excess powdered enamel that I would later have to scatter on the piece to stick to the paper. After the correct levels of glue were applied the next stage was to sieve the powdered enamel on to it. As a lot of powder strays on to paper this is why it has to be free of glue, so you can fold the paper and put the excess enamel powder back into the jar. Its important not to be wasteful. In the process of placing the enamel onto a piece of gauze for drying before firing it seemed impossible not to smudge the enamel powder, slowly drying on the copper, with the clumsiness of my hand. I need to be more dexterous maybe.
Now that the enamelling powder was settled on the klyr fire I had to wait for the glue to dry so the enamel particles fix to the copper. I was told by Kathy to keep patient before putting the sample into the kiln: if fired too quickly the enamel and glue do not gain purchase on the copper surface and actually spit at you afer being fired in the kiln. This break, among others, gave me the opportunity to talk to some of the students in the class. One student was experimenting with blowtorching enamel onto a folded copper surface that she uses for jewellery that she sells in a market and others compliment other skill sets with enamelling techniques. There seemed to be a loose distinction between those who use the things learnt in the classroom for practice done elsewhere, and those whose practice is confined to the workspace in the college.
Back to the enamel piece…
The enamel piece was put into the oven and I watched through the window the red glow and the changes that happen to the surface. It goes black, settles slightly and then forms a gloss. When glossy it is time to remove. My piece had insignificant coverage as the melted enamel did not cover the copper plate adequately. I would have to do another layer. But this is no problem. Layering enamel is part of the art, as the clear enamel layer that a woman put over her butterfly brooch design showed, for although clear it altered the look of the colours beneath.
The process is repeated. Although second time round I was careful not to over-apply the klyr fire and seive more enamel on to the copper, but my hand still disturbed the laid down enamel powder when putting it on a gauze to dry.
Kathy showed me some more of the equipment and materials, including enamel beads that were a version of millefiori – a thousand flowers, which have their origins in Murano glassworks, that melt a pattern on to the copper surface after being fired in the kiln. Kathy described these particular beads as super amateur. They’re like magic tricks. You place the small pinhead sized bead on the clean copper and they melt to produce a decorative design. A massive shortcut, basically, producing decoration with less authorship granted to ‘design’. As I dropped a bead on to the floor and splintered it, it was sensible to put this in the middle of my design. After the firing process the blue enamel that I chose raised to satisfactory thickness and the enamel bead melted to produce a decorative black design in the centre.
My first peice of enamel. Blue with a black decorative spot in the middle. Like an abstract eye or elaborate button.
Drilling, as my manual informed me, is one of the techniques that is facilitated by what is called a ‘flexible shaft machine’, an electrical machine plugged into the mains that you can attach drills and buffers to. It is controlled by a foot pedal that controls the revolutions per minute.
Lucky for me, one of these is placed on the spare workbench. I don’t have to borrow one or buy one. Again, I’m privileged to be in the RCA. Most amateurs might have to part company with a bit of cash for this kit.
I borrowed a drill bit from a student, and was shown how this is attached to the electric machine. The manual did not tell you how to put drill bits into the machine. You had to put a pin in a hole to lock the device so you could screw on the drill bit. Assumed knowledge, but perhaps challenging to the uninitiated.
The drilling is fairly straightforward, you just have to hammer a divot into the metal. Then just exert the pressure. Quite a simple, safe process. Then you can cut shapes out of the metal, making patterns that could act as stencils.
To keep all this practicing interesting I decided to spell out craft, cutting out the letters from the inside of the metal. I used a typography that I remembered from my D&T classes during my GCSEs. I did a freehand outline of the general idea and then started cutting. Then the blades started to snap alot trying to get the more subtle angles (see Blade break diary 1).
To smooth the inside edge of the outline I started to use the file more vigorously, less careful than my previous technique. I was slowly abandoning my timid strokes with the file and being more thorough. But by doing so I almost poked my eye out as the metal flung up towards my face after a particularly heavy thrust.
Jewellery manuals say that beginners break a lot of saws when cutting their first shapes in metal. This was a reason for selecting a part of the workshop where there are not many other workers to witness such foibles.
I thought I’d keep a record of the amount of times I broke a blade and the reason for it.
15/10. 3.30pm – The blade snagged on a rough piece of metal that I was cutting. The blade got stuck in the cut and I was attempting to remove the blade from this position but in the process the blade snapped.
15/10. 3.35pm – After having reset the blade in position in the saw and started cutting again I turned the metal I was cutting at a sharp angle and this severed the blade.
15/10. 4.10pm – The third snap of the afternoon. I moved my sawing location from the bench pin to the surface nearby without even taking the blade out of the metal. The cumbersome movement of the tools and material caused another breakage.
23/10. 11.05am – After a week’s break from sawing it took me about 15 minutes to break the first blade. I was trying to saw a circle around a piece of metal which was too difficult to fit the arch of the saw around. I knew that I was stressing the blade. I was seeing how far I could stretch it before the break.
23/10. 11.34am – The saw wasn’t cutting smoothly. I thought there might be something wrong with the blade so I angled the saw to look to see if I could see anything. After twisting the saw the only thing I could see was a broken blade.
23/10. 12.13am – I let out a little yelp with this break. Schoolboy error - I was turning the metal around the stationary blade. Under such high tension and caught between the rough metal surface the blade pinged .
23/10. 12.37am. Another break. Why did this happen? I was cutting normally. Maybe I didn’t tighten the blade after the last break.
23/10. 12.40am. This break, happening so quickly after the one before, angered me. I cursed the tool and wondered why I was having so many breaks this morning.
23/10. 12.50am. Third break in quick succession. A catastrophic break, bending the whole blade with the snap in the middle. This made me irate as it was my last blade in my toolkit. I felt to stop but didn’t want the blades to defeat me as I wanted to finish the cutting I was doing.
I managed to find one more blade in the toolkit. I wanted to be careful with the blade to finish the job. Thankfully I was but thought perhaps being too careful was increasing the chances of the blade breaking.
I read in the manual ‘The more sawing experience you gain, the longer your blades will last’.
I don’t agree with this at all. When I first started to cut I was incredibly attentive, thinking of my arm as a machine around which the metal moved. Now I am breaking many more blades. Maybe it’s because I am being complacent, maybe because I am cutting smaller and tougher shapes, maybe because I am forgetting to affix my blade correctly. Whatever the reason the more breaks you get in quick succession the more frustrated you become and this will lead to further snaps and disruption to any sort of rhythm.
This reverses the standard expectation of acquiring skills. Usually its teleological – you build up skills and get better at something. However, maybe there is a stage of learning before becoming familiar with a skill but after being a complete novice where most of the mistakes are made. The overt caution of the beginner is lost, but you are far from being familiar with the skill. This is the stage where it might be easy to give up. We can coin it ’second wave novicism’, where beginner’s enthusiasm, care and luck have run out and what is needed to carry on is perseverance, determination and hard work.
I did more cutting today, but I wanted to smooth the edges of my cut metal so that they could snugly fit into each other, and just to practice another essential skill in jewellery. The third most important thing according to the manual.
The instruction is to only exert pressure on the thing you are filing when you move away from the body with the file in your hand. I have used files on a wooden surface before and exerted pressure both ways – towards and away from the body. But i think this must have been bad practice, but nobody told me otherwise. But here, you only take off metal when moving away from the body.
I felt slight tension in my hands from holding down the metal from filing too hard or something. I might seek a clamp to do this job as there was a moment where my middle finger was outstretched, locked in a position from which it was slightly painful to bend.
Being close to other students is good to ask questions etc. But even better is the slightly more isolated machine room so that you’re not being watched too much. You can make your mistakes in peace, behind a gigantic green machine gurgling out green frothy liquid from its sides. This is important for the amateur, nervously acquiring a skill. Tentative with the first motions in using each saw.
The stores manager of the department Mark Tremla kitted me out with a toolbox used for workshops held by visiting professors. It contained the essential things needed to practice – files, hammer, saw – and meant that I didn’t have to rely on the tools of students, or more importantly buy my own.
Being able to borrow a toolkit is not standard amateur practice. Most amateurs build up an array of materials and kit. They spend money on establishing a workstation through multiple trips to homebase before practice commences and then continue to acquire tools relevant to the specific needs of their practice. Perhaps a toolkit contains things that one practitioner would never make use of, but another finds essential to their work. Some amateurs just practice with what they have to hand. On the rare occasions practitioners make there own tools – these are the real devotees, perhaps with a lot of time on their hands.
My situation is fairly artificial. I can have all the kit needed to make simple pieces of jewellery without the financial commitment and worry. I can bypass the worry and financial duress of buying a set of tools that prevents many starts in the various crafts. Priced out by the market, practice remains a dream, as paying the rent, putting your car through MOT or buying Taste the Difference sausages demands all the monetary resources.
But I had this beautiful tin red box and I felt proud strutting up and down the corridor with it in my hand. I could do a variety of jobs without hassling anyone else and completely under my own volition. Like gleaming packed lunch boxes on the first day of school with mum-made food inside: a lid that opened to wonderful treasures. Although, the effect wares off soon as its hard to be too romantic about metal tools in plastic packets. Is it silly to be gushy about tools?
After finally overcoming the fear of starting to make things, i settled in a spare bench and started to practice cutting metal. I had been hiding behind the comfort of the computer screen for a couple of days trying to prepare for making instead of actually taking the plunge. I was told by another research student that there’s only so much reading that you can do – she was completely correct. The manual only goes so far in preparing its reader for practice.
Cutting metal with a jewellery saw. The manual provided the instructions and suggested that I try out on scrap pieces and as I had that morning been shown the pile of offcuts by one of the huge green machines in one of the workshops there was no shortage of supply.
There was no-one else in this room which helped ease my anxiety of being watched. Amateurs want to learn for themselves without the eyes of others around them, be they helpful or judgmental. It’s important to be solitary in these early stages, making successes and mistakes by yourself and consult others only when their particular expertise is required. This is probably a remnant of my way of learning, solitary and bookish. I’m sure everyone is different.
I had pieces of aluminum, guilted metal and brass that I could cut with. I borrowed a student’s saw and started cutting shapes into the materials. The instructions informed me how to assemble the saw, but I had done this already (see blog on stop.swap). So I just cut out various shapes on the material. The manual informed that I should move the saw up and down, thinking of it as a machine without exerting too much pressure.
But this was slow going, I had to exert some pressure otherwise I’ll be in the department until the evening still on my first incision. The manual didn’t tell me how to fast to saw up and down, but it informed me that the cut was only made on the downward thrust. I concentrated on this particular motion trying to achieve a bite against the metal to cut effectively and quickly.
Ping – first break – I went to pull the saw out of the incision in the metal and I bent the blade. It broke. It was okay, the manual said that there were many breaks in the learning process and other students said that they often broke saws… I just got a small pack of them from the store room. I fixed the blade in the saw and started off again.
The second break happened because I was putting too much angle on the blade.
But I continued cutting and there was no more breaks. I started to cut shapes to fit against the edges of other shapes like a jig-saw. A student earlier from History of Design department jokingly said I was doing metal by numbers. She set off an idea – to make a jigsaw of metal like a paint-by-number composition, from the different metals!
But that’s for the morrow. I went back to the research room and saw the technician David Turtle. He said how the saw cuts better if you smooth beeswax over the back of the blade, or even spit. I’ll practice that next time. He also explained how the fine craftsmanship in producing the mesmerising patterns on the backs of watches is created through sawing and filing. Two simple processes, two simple tools, taken to perfection to inspire wonder and awe in the viewer. Some people learn how to cut and file metal and never stop.
As a part of stop.swap, a series of events ran by communications students Fabio Franz and Bianca Elzenbaumer (http://www.brave-new-alps.com), Josephine Winter of the GSM&J department ran a jewellery workshop on the Thursday (8th October), where the task was to make a simple metal brooch, made from aluminum.
This was my first attempt to get my hands dirty. Josephine had seen me as a fleeting outsider in the department, scurrying about, and welcomed this attempt for me to change my perspective from observer to maker.
Space: The Hockney Gallery of the Stephens building had been transformed into a miniature studio with miniaturised jewellery workstations. There were small wooden workstations with the v-shaped hole, that allow the jewellery saw to cut around detailed metal outlines.
Step 1: Putting the blade in the saw was just like assembling a hacksaw. But to get the tension on the saw you had to push it against your chest to cause the metal arch of the saw to bend. My blade kept pinging out of its screw, meaning I ended up with a bruised chest from the multiple attempts at assembly.
Step 2: Now I had to draw a shape on paper – the shape of my brooch. I wanted to have a kite shaped brooch and started to cut out the rough sketch with scissors. I realised that the pointed ends of my design could not be realised as there had to be a square end for the latch mechanism to work. This meant my kite started to look like a coffin.
Step 3: I had to stick this paper pattern on to metal. There was some spray on glue round the corner which I sprayed all over the paper and on my hand. Later, when sawing the shape out Josephine talked about the importance of holding the plate tightly, I had no choice – my hand was stuck to the design and the metal filings from the cutting gravitated towards my gluey hands.
Step 4: The cutting was pretty good. I didn’t snap any saws and the line was fairly straight. But the lack of symmetry gave the whole thing a rough-around-the-edges kind of look.
Step 5: The outline was cut and now I was going to embellish the brooch with a wood relief cross. It was a chunky wooden cross, a sort of Shaun of the Dead-type style.
Step 6: Josephine then riveted the cross on to the aluminum, a vampirical knock through its centre, something she had never done before. She then bended over the two ends to create the latch and a pin so that it could be attached to clothing.
Step 7: Filing. I finished off the edges of the pin so that it could pierce cloth with ease. I also filed down the edges asking how much finishing was needed. This was a matter of taste and what ‘look’ I was going for. I smoothed the point of the coffin, but didn’t want to go too far. It was my first rough attempt. Didn’t want to be too serious!
Step 8: Critical reception. We mused upon my rough cut brooch over green tea. It could pass for a rudimentary religious icon fused to the metal plate. A fellow novice looked upon my piece and laughed. “You started in the sky but ended up in the ground” he said. I hope that is not a bad omen for my future amateur endeavours!
