My Jewelry Workshop

Every since I can remember I have loved jewelry. Just the look feel and weight get me every time. If you wear anything fake around me, I can tell. While at Worcester Academy it took on a whole new meaning. I had to do a senior project to get a diploma (we paid enough for one year so it sounded like a good deal) and they told me I could do anything I wanted. I talked to one of the teachers, Ms. Van Hooern, and she gave me the proper resources. This wasn't going to be about stringing beads or anything. This was seat of your pants alloying, melting and fabricating with an acetylene torch. It all went well enough to get a diploma, but it didn't stop there.

Over then next couple of years I would go on to experiment for many countless hours in my workshop. I started by making less complicated rings and cuff bracelets. I felt I needed more of a challenge and looked at the DVD I had ordered on how to construct a twisted curb ID bracelet. It was about a two hour video and I watched it a couple times. Using this newfound knowledge I went back in the workshop and built the thing from scratch in about four hours. It was challenging at times but a very worthwhile lesson.

I feel calm in the workshop. Sure I'm working with fire, up to 4,500F at times, but its a very relaxing experience. Some days I would spend six or seven hours out there, toiling away. It could be the whole isolation thing or controlling something, fire, that I never thought I could. It may be the way imagination flows or the excitement I get from discovering how to make a new design. I would take the time to show whoever was interested in how it all worked, naturally. No one really had time to see a project through the end but they got the gist of it.

In spring of 2008 I had shoulder surgery to repair my labrum that I tore playing baseball while at Umass Lowell. My mom eventually moved and I had to pack up the workshop indefinitely. But things have not changed. The seed of creativity that I planted then still waits for a time when it can blossom once again. That time is near as my dad is moving and building me a workshop in his basement. I have recently obtained plenty of silver, in a variety of different forms, as well as a nice 5 gram bar of 24k pure gold. All my tools seem intact and all I need is another tank of fuel for the torch and to re-order some consumable items that may have expired.

One of the first things I make is going to be a 14k or 18k ring with a small square of blue gold in the middle. Blue is the Asperger color. It won't be easy to make, especially the blue gold alloying part, but it will be worth it. I'll have to first make a sample out of sterling silver because I don't want to screw up on gold. That would be an expensive mistake. I will be sure to put up pictures when it is done but that is about a month away and the house isn't done yet.

In the mean time you can see some of my old basic work on Webshots http://community.webshots.com/user/preciousmetalman or the better stuff, how to make a nicer ring or the ID chain by first friending me on Facebook and checking my photo albums.