News from MCSJ
Important Announcement from Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery
30th May 2023
The MCSJ Silver Metal Clay Diploma Home Study Course is now closed to new admissions and further sales.
Students with outstanding work have a further two years (until June 1st 2025) to submit items for assessment and award of certificates.
No further work will be assessed after that time.
Advice is still available to help you complete your work before the deadline via the private MCSJ Home Study Support group on Facebook or via email info@mcsj.co.uk
We’ve enjoyed our many years of service in this arena and wish you all well with your future endeavours.
Warm regards,
Lisa Cain
Founding Director
April 2018
Episodes of Make! are occasionally available on iPlayer. Check here.
News...
March 2018
I'm very proud to be involved in this excellent three-part
series on BBC Four.
This high-quality programme goes beyond solely
focusing on what the participants are able to make and
explores some of the therapeutic benefits of creativity.
This is an aspect of teaching (and making) that I'm
deeply passionate about.
You'll see me guiding six total beginners through
the magic of creating with silver metal clay. As with most
classes, there were some ups and downs, some problem
solving and at the end, a huge sense of personal
satisfaction for each person.
The group were an absolute joy to work with and made
some truly excellent work. This was all filmed last October
and I'm delighted to recently hear that some
are continuing to work with metal clay. Two have even
run a taster session for their friends to spread the joy
further still! This was a great adventure for everyone
involved.
I can't wait to see the whole programme next week.
Proud, excited and impatient,
Lisa
What an experience!
We can't give too much away but you're in for a treat when you tune
into any of the three episodes of Make! Craft Britain on BBC Four
Wednesdays at 9pm
March 21st, 28th
and April 4th
Each of the three episodes features two different crafts.
Episode 1 aired the other night and showed
Traditional Letterpress and Hooky Rug Making
It's available on iPlayer now
Click here to view
Episode 2 features Jewellery Making and Cross Stitch
Watch MCSJ director, Lisa Cain teaching six beginners
to work with Silver Metal Clay from the stunning location
of The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle.
In the same episode, Jamie Chalmers introduces six novices to
Cross Stitch from The Royal School of Needlework based at
Hampton Court Palace
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Samuel Burr did an excellent job of photographing
everyone between filming.
He even managed to get a good shot of Lisa
which, she says, is a rarity!
Here's the image he took for the Make! Craft Britain website
This link will take you to the BBC website
You'll be able to see clips, download craft tutorials
and read about all the teachers involved in this excellent series.
Filming took place last October and we haven't seen
the end result yet, so we are super-excited.
News...
July 2017
Bowls by Rachael Osborne
Photo Paul Mounsey
Big News!
We've got BIG news!
Really huge.
Possibly the biggest ever...
Read the story behind creating the largest vessel ever made in silver metal clay.
The results are spectacular and we are very proud to share this news with you.
Rachael Osborne
With a background in fine art and ceramics, Rachael started her jewellery education with
us at MCSJ back in 2005 and then went on to study for her Silversmithing and Jewellery degree at Plymouth University.
Rachael takes her inspiration from the sea and spending time near the sea is central to her wellbeing.
She wanted to find a way to capture and express the swirling energy of the wave in metal,
which led her to develop a unique technique in molten pewter.
She began producing evocative bowls on an epic scale.
The pewter was poured in liquid form and turned on a potters wheel, with breath-taking effect.
In 2016 Rachael won the prestigious Goldsmiths Precious Metal Bullion award to enable her to recreate her pewter bowls in sterling silver. As Rachael and her tutors at college pondered over the construction of such a bowl, they considered several traditional silversmithing options. Casting, Etching, Raising and so on. However, each technique presented specific obstacles, which we'll cover later in the story.
With the deadline for the bullion award fast approaching, Rachael wondered whether Silver Metal Clay might be the answer so she contacted Lisa Cain, Founding Director at MCSJ. After a lengthy conversation, Rachael hired Lisa as a consultant on the project and says, "I knew Lisa would be the most knowledgeable person I could go to with this task. Not only does she have a background in traditional silversmithing and jewellery fabrication techniques but she's also been working with silver metal clay longer then anyone else in the UK. So, she held the best of both worlds to help me figure out if Silver Clay was the right material to create this bowl. I also remembered that Lisa had invented Sterling Silver Clay when the manufacturers had said it couldn't be done, so I knew she'd have the right approach for an unconventional project like mine."
Lisa Cain remembers taking Rachael's first call and being excited by the thrill of the challenge. "When Rachael explained to me what she wanted and the technique she had used to construct the pewter bowls I was amazed by what I heard. To my knowledge, this was something no one else had ever done before and the results were spectacular. I was struck by her ingenuity and inventiveness. To me, Rachael Osborne is an Artist in the truest sense of the word. Her desire to capture the essence of the swirling sea drove her to invent a whole new pewter technique. That's impressive!
Photo of Rachael's pewter bowl taken at New Designers Show 2016
The size and complexity of the pewter bowls created unique problems which couldn't easily be solved by using traditional techniques on sterling silver. First there was the sheer scale- some of Rachael's pewter bowls were a whopping 460mm across x 180mm deep, sitting on an 80mm wide bottom.
That's a VERY big bowl.
In fact, the bowl they worked on together quickly came to be affectionately known as 'The Big Bastard Bowl' or BBB for short!
Another problem was the variety of thicknesses throughout the vessel. At its thickest, the texture was over 1.5 mm thick but it was also very thin in places. So thin, that there were occasional holes right through it!
Photos showing the outside of pewter bowls with holes (left) and the inside texture (right)
And then there was the texture~ a swirling, splashing, fluid, multi-layered, uneven texture. Lisa says, "I wanted to be as certain as possible that Silver Metal Clay would be Rachael's best choice. The weight of our options was heavy on my shoulders as there would be more than £2,000 worth of materials involved. IN ONE BOWL! Time was running short so I cleared my schedule and set about asking all the experts I knew for advice on how best to approach this mission. We made a dash trip to London with the Pewter bowls. The surest way to get meaningful advice was to show people what we needed to make. I'd tried explaining the task on the phone when setting up our appointments but nothing can replace the tactile experience of handling the object while contemplating the problem. All the experts agreed: if we wanted to recreate these pewter bowls in sterling silver, we had a BIG problem."
Possible Options
Rachael had already been researching the task for several months and together with Lisa, they methodically eliminated all the traditional construction methods they could think of including (but not limited to) the following techniques Raising~ If Rachael was able to raise a bowl large enough from flat sheet, then the randomised, layered texture would be difficult to replicate using traditional methods such as chasing or repousse. Electro-forming would probably not give the weight and fluidity in texture that Rachael wanted to convey and they both had worries about how to repair it if anything happened to the bowl. Casting~ The large scale of the bowl meant that regular casting techniques would leave Rachael with seams, which would be hard to conceal. (The casting flasks simply weren't big enough to produce the item whole) The pair phoned casting companies who are familiar with producing large-scale statues but since they usually work in other metals, like bronze, contamination to the silver would be a real danger. And the cost for a one-off set-up in silver was just too expensive. Etching didn't feel right to Rachael because she wanted to "create a bowl, not dissolve one away!" CAD~ The undercuts and texture ridges would have been tricky for the laser to follow in detail. And, once again, the scale was a problem.
There came a moment when Lisa and Rachael had exhausted all other traditional construction options and agreed that Silver Metal Clay was going to be the way forward. Calculating the amount of Clay they needed was tricky because maths is a bit of a mystery to both women. So they ordered what Rachael refers to as "A lot, lot, LOT of clay! Basically I spent the entire bullion award on silver clay" Ultimately they ordered in excess of a kilo of silver clay. And they had no idea if the venture would succeed.
The perfect mixture for BBB
After careful consideration, Lisa recommended that they use a mixture of Flex™, Fine Silver (PMC/Art Clay) and Sterling Silver Clay. Her reasoning was this, "I'd tested PMC Flex™ before it was released to the public so I was familiar with its unique properties. Using a percentage of PMC Flex™ in our mixture would ensure the bowl would have a little 'give'. It'd be less brittle and therefore less likely to break during construction. The Sterling Silver Clay would give the fired bowl strength. Mixing equal amounts of fine silver clay with sterling silver clay to create '960' was pioneered by my friend Celie Fago in 2014. (Read Celie's announcement here)
This rapidly became my favourite clay to work with. Mixing our own '960' would enable us to fire the bowl in a one-step process, without the need for a carbon firing. Remember, there was no commercial One-Fire Sterling silver clay available to buy in 2016. So, in essence, we used a 'Flex/960' mixture to create this beast of a bowl"
Capturing the texture
Figuring out how to use the metal clay to best effect took quite a bit of experimentation, a couple of all-night sessions and a process of elimination. There were potentially several ways to capture the texture of the pewter bowls but there were also dangers inherent in some methods
Pewter has a very low melting point, and if any got into the silver metal clay, the pewter could eat away at the silver when it was fired at high temperature in the kiln. So capturing the texture by pressing the silver clay directly onto the pewter bowl was not an option.
Experiments in capturing texture
The 'failures' held the answer
One of the best things about silver metal clay is that there is never any waste. Until you fire it, you can always change your mind and turn your dried pieces back into useable silver clay again. Next, Rachael made slip out of the dried experiments so they could re-use all of the 'failed' attempts ('Slip' is water mixed with silver metal clay).
She then began to pour the slip into the stainless steel former bowl whilst it was spinning on the potter's wheel. Rachael was onto something here! Swirling texture with varying thickness....
Rachael says, "I knew all along I wanted a fluid, free-flowing texture and I could see it appearing there and then. Unfortunately it was running back down the insides of the steel former bowl so I was losing some of the effect. Lisa fetched her hairdryer and we set about blowing the slip dry while it was spinning on the wheel."
"The Result? It was exactly what I wanted! That moment was quite a relief. Even if the rest of the process was still a vast unknown, at least we knew we'd captured the texture."
Once Rachael had settled on the slip-construction method, Lisa figured out a way to make the slip more efficiently. She dried all the silver clay in her food de-hydrator and then turned the dry clay into fine powder in her coffee bean grinder. This super-fine silver metal clay powder could then be easily turned into slip of the right consistency by adding water.
Making slip and very big mess in Lisa's kitchen!
As the silver metal clay bowl grew in size, they began to wonder what might happen if they couldn't separate it from the steel former bowl. They had greased the bowl liberally with Badger Balm but what if it wouldn't come out? Could it simply be left where it was in the steel former bowl and fired?
Lisa reasoned "I'm used to firing silver metal clay in a small steel bowl but the pieces are usually resting on a layer of vermiculite. I had no idea if the clay would sinter properly if it was in direct contact with the stainless steel inside the kiln. So, I thought we'd better find out! We rummaged around in my kitchen and found a tiny steel condiment dish so Rachael could make a teeny tiny version of the Big Bastard Bowl. If the weeny one survived the firing in contact with the steel, in theory, we'd be able to leave the BBB in situ and fire it. Given the choice, I'd much prefer to leave the big one in place rather than risk damaging it when trying to extricate such a large and fragile item in one piece."
At this point Rachael had to return to her family and so she left Lisa to test fire Teeny Bowl. They didn't spend a lot of time making it but the results told them what they needed to know. The kiln-fired silver metal clay slip mixture sintered perfectly when left in direct contact with the steel bowl.
Straight from the kiln, Teeny Bowl had sintered but was quite mis-shaped.
Lisa was able to gently reshape Teeny Bowl using spoon stakes and a rubber mallet. The bowl was brushed and burnished to a gentle shine. It had strength even though it was super thin!
Rachael continued to perfect BBB at home over many, many days. As the bowl neared completion, she decided to take her chances and separate the unfired bowl from the steel former bowl. Rachael gradually and carefully eased the metal clay bowl away using a long flexible crepe knife. She explains why; "After spending so long getting the inside right, I really needed to see how the outside looked. I didn't want to just fire it without seeing the other side first. I tried around the top edge and it seemed flexible enough to want to detach without breaking."
The outside texture of the metal clay bowl hadn't been visible during construction but after a lot of gentle coaxing, the unfired BBB emerged from the steel intact.
It stood whole and proud, of its own accord for the first time.
The outside texture looked exactly as Rachael wanted it to!
Lisa says she nearly had a heart attack when Rachael sent her this photo of the unfired bowl sitting on the coffee table. "I didnt know Rachael was going to remove it and my jaw dropped open when I saw this. I was delighted she had created the desired effect inside and out. However, seeing it sit there looking so vulnerable, I was terrified something would happen to it before we could fire it. Bear in mind that Rachael has 2 children, a cat and a busy household. My immediate response was - Don't blink, don't breathe and don't move anywhere near it! Get that thing back inside the steel bowl right now and I'll meet you at the college to fire it."
Firing the Big Bastard Bowl
Following the successful sintering of Teeny Bowl, they decided to fire the BBB sitting in the steel former bowl for support. They took advice from several people on a firing schedule.
Rachael remembers, "Even the biggest kiln at college was only just wide enough to take the steel former bowl. The rim of the bowl was only a few centimetres away from the heating elements at the sides of the kiln. The technicians in the ceramics department were brilliant. They helped us with programming the firing schedule, then Lisa and I set up the test cones for a trial run of the firing. We needed to make sure there weren't any hot-spots in the kiln and that the edges of the bowl wouldn't melt."
Several hours later, the test cones showed that it should be safe to go ahead with firing BBB.
As you can probably imagine, the actual firing was a very nerve-wracking event.
Lisa says, "This was one of those memorable, career-defining moments. Sadly I wasn't able to stay to see the kiln opened for the BBB firing as I was called away to a family emergency. I imagine we would have been like expectant parents walking the halls outside the delivery room and I do wish I could have been there for the big moment."
Lisa and Rachael praying to the Kiln Gods.
Post Firing adjustments
There was a bit of a mixed reaction when Rachael opened the kiln.
"I was relieved to see the bowl had fired without any melting but it had slumped and distorted quite drastically in the process. I must admit I felt a bit disappointed and daunted about how to put it right. But time was running short so I got on and tackled it with a mallet and various formers to set about reshaping it. I could now approach it as a metalworker but I had to work carefully as the bowl was very fragile in places.
While I was hammering, a large segment near the top broke off which was really discouraging. At this point I was thinking the whole thing was a Big Bastard Mistake! Setbacks like this have such a devastating impact when you are tight up against a deadline."
There was no time for anything but sheer determination. Rachael finished carefully reshaping the bowl while considering what to do about the breakage. She decided against patching the piece back on with silver clay and then re-firing to make an invisible join.
Instead she opted for a KITSUNGI approach.
This Japanese technique is used in ceramics to make a repair visible,
to add to the beauty and to help highlight the history of the piece.
Rachael fabricated staples made from steel and gave them a rusty patina so they stood out in contrast.
The silver was hand-finished using polishing papers, steel wire brushes and then burnished in selected areas.
BBB was then rushed to our favourite photographer, Paul Mounsey.
Rachael even made the deadline with a few hours to spare!
So, there you have it.
The story of the largest vessel ever made in silver metal clay.
If we'd had more time, we'd probably have an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records!
We're pretty sure this is a world record and, so far, no one has been able to refute that claim.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Study with the best
Phone +44 (0)7833 105744
Special thanks
We had so much valuable and generous help and advice along the way.
People were rooting for us from the sidelines throughout this project and we are very grateful for their help
- Celie Fago
- Noortje Meijerink
- Barbara Becker Simon
- Terry Kovalcik
- Tim McCreight
- Shaun Leane
- Ben Rowe
- Tim Lukes
- Richard Fox
- Danuta Solowiej
- BJS
- Peter Musson
- Dave Merry at Goldsmiths hall
- Ben Ryan
- Paul Mounsey Photography
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
News...
February 2017
New dates added.
2017 Silver Clay and Beginners Silverwork classes
are now booked up until Easter so we have
added some extra dates.
Check here for dates and prices of our latest classes.
Pictures from in and around our new studio in Devon
It's a great space with fantastic natural light and glorious views
News...
September 2014
MCSJ and our Support Centres are the first in the UK to test a new type of PMC called Flex. We'll be telling you all about it over the coming weeks so make sure you use the box below to sign up for our email newsletter. Meanwhile here's a video about Flex.
News...
5th February 2013
Lisa Cain is selected for the Woodland Chic Design Team by Patrik Kusek, Award winning artist, author and teacher. Patrik Kusek hand picked a design team to work with his new Dynasty Stamp Woodland Chic texture mat.
Take a look at the team and the designs they came up with here http://patriksstudio.com/designteam/
21st September 2012
Our booking cancellation terms and conditions have changed. From now on, we are no longer offering refunds or transfers on booked classes. You can read our full terms and conditions here.
7th July 2012
Why not learn from the wonderful Wanaree Tanner?
She'll be here in November to teach two Masterclasses and we have now added a third class so you can learn how to use this versatile machine to make freeform bezels. Few people know more about this process than Wanaree.
Trouble-shooting the software programme with your own laptop, learning the practical applications for direct use in metal clay and making a bezel pendant all in just two days! This class will save you hours of problem solving to quickly get you up and running with this versatile new tool.
August 2016
In 2016 we launched our new Masterclasp class Here are just a few of the great Keyhole clasps made on our Masterclasp courses run in 2016Check here for dates and prices of our Metal Clay Masterclasp
18th September 2011
All our Diploma Support Centres have voluntarily signed up to our Teaching Code of Practice. It provides students with a degree of reassurance that the metal clay training they have purchased from one of our licensed Support Centres will meet the standards described by the Code. We also have an Assurance Process linked to the Code of Practice. For the first time anywhere in the World, you can be assured that you are getting the best standard of metal clay training from well trained teachers.
MCSJ in the News
The jewellery school is based in Cornwall, UK and all jewellery making classes run in our well equipped workshop.