First Week: Class at The Crucible

Aside from the various projects and commissions she undertakes in her home studio, Aimee also instructs week-long classes at The Crucible, which is a really unique facility located in Oakland that provides an exceptional array of industrial-art classes for youth and adults. Aimee specifically taught two three-hour classes per day in metal jewelry for ages 12 - 17.

So, for my first week of the internship, I helped Aimee set up and tidy up the classroom, as well as assist the other students with their projects when possible, but the greater extent of my time was spent actually getting to listen in with the class and attempt to create pieces following Aimee's instruction and explanation. Because I had never taken a class like this before, I found my frustration at my inability accumulating at times, but even so, I was able to recognize that I was learning a great amount of skill in the manipulation of metals and the properties behind each action. I annealed brass, silver, and copper with a flame-torch to prepare them for use, pounded out designs and textures using a hammer and mallet, sawed metal into shapes utilizing a contraption that held a miniscule sliver of a saw, soldered different pieces of metal into one unit with silver solder, and worked a polishing machine -to name just a few of the skills I picked up.

Here is a strip of silver I had soldered together with brass and imprinted designs upon, in preparation to form it as a ring:

And here was my greatest frustration:

I melted the ring I had worked hours and hours upon when I tried to anneal it in order to soften the metal up to bend the way I wanted it to. . . I was upset for some time at my mistake, sure, but I had enjoyed the process of creating the ring -despite its ultimate failure- and had learned a lot from the experience.

Additionallly, I created a keychain with the letter M for my name. Here are the pieces that the

morning class made; my 'M' is difficult to see but its in there.

A close-up of an amazing ring made by one of the students:

Aimee was an excellent teacher [below], constantly encouraging her students and exercising patience with them, and was also there to help me when I needed it.

I feel that this class was a perfect introductory to Aimee and her work, and I had a wonderful experience getting to create and experiment every day for a week with the rest of the quirky crew at The Crucible.