I enjoyed making the cup shapes out of flat copper and went to find out more in the library. There I found a DVD from the Goldsmiths’ Company on how to raise a silver jug from a flat sheet of silver. Clear instruction but could I do it? The results so far suggested that I should try. The video below isn’t really a video but a set of pictures I took to record the process after each round of beating, annealing, and cleaning – it’s a couple of mins long and the last few pictures were taken with our camera [not my phone] to try and capture the bowl edge & inside. As I get better at both making and blogging, I’ll try to make some video clips of the processes and me making stuff.
Since I made the bowl, I’ve read Benventuto Cellini’s Treatises on Goldsmithing and Sculpture. Far from being a deeply technical text, he talks of how he worked for various important people and of quarrels and, of course, how to make stuff. Funnily enough, his description of how to make a vase could have been used to guide the makers of the DVD – little if any change in practice since the 1540s!
I will soon have caught up with my day-to-day activities at college. That said, I’ve got some longer “Pages” to write on a variety of topics.
Cheers, Vincent
