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GET AWAY WORKSHOPS

Shell Forming Metal
with Betty Helen Longhi

Betty Helen Longhi has spent the last twenty five years exploring the possibilities of shell forming
in her jewelry and sculpture. She shows her work nationally and has taught all over the United
States including Penland and Haystack.
She is now offering a special opportunity for small groups of students to work in her personal studio
and stay at her lakeside home in North Carolina.
These unique workshops will combine close personal attention, optimal equipment and the
opportunity of pursuing a very individual course of study in a beautiful vacation setting.

Shell forming is a wonderful way to create three dimensional structures for jewelry and sculpture
from flat sheet metal. Using one hard tool, usually a hammer, and one resilient tool,
a wood or plastic form, one can rapidly form sheet metal into desired shapes.
Students will explore the fundamentals of sheet metal behavior and gain an understanding of the relationship between technique, tools and resulting forms.
Specific techniques will include synclastic sinking, anticlastic raising and methods to make
transitions from one form to another resulting in more complex structures.
Emphasis is on the great potential for forming which can be accomplished using a minimum of tools.

To see a video of Betty Helen demonstrating this process,
http://www.hgtv.com/videos/jewelry-metal-artist/13501.html

For additional information, brochures and costs:
email: bhl@fluidformsinmetal.com
or call: 336-798-5725

For current workshop schedule scroll down


CURRENT WORKSHOP SCHEDULE 2009

Get Away Workshop Schedule 2009

May 2 to 8; June 5 to 11; June 20 to 26

My 2009 Get Away Workshops are filled with a waiting list.

For those interested in my 2010 workshops please contact me by email and I will send you a more detailed description including estimated costs.  If after receiving this information, you are definitely interested in attending a 2010 workshop, please contact me and I will put you on my 2010 mailing list.

Workshop dates are set in January of the year they are offered and this information is sent to those on the list for that year.  I usually offer 3 workshops with space for 3 students per workshop.  It is important to contact me during the preceding year to be put on the list for the following year since the 9 available spaces are filled quickly.

Other Workshops

Bead Making Using Shell Forming Techniques for Metal
January 31 to February 1, 2009
Sawtooth School for Visual Art; Winston-Salem, NC
336-723-7395
www.sawtooth.org


Basic Forming Techniques for Jewelry
March 28 to 29, 2009
Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths
linda@danedecor.com


A Broader Look at Spiculums
April 3 to 5, 2009
Metalwerx, Boston, MA
781-891-3854
www.metalwerx.com


Cuffs and Bracelets
October 3 and 4, 2009
Milwaukee, WI
Contact: Polly Daeger; 414-271-3777
pollyrd@wi.rr.com

 

Creating by Forming Metal

Detailed Course Description

Shell forming is a technique for forming sheet metal into three-dimensional structures.
The process requires the use of one hard metal tool (either a hammer or a stake) and one resilient tool (either a plastic or wood mallet or a plastic or wood stake). Using these conditions the metal can be formed quickly into strong fluid shapes.
The process is appropriate for any size work from small jewelry to large sculpture.

This workshop will cover the following:
1. basic hammering techniques
2. how to control the hammer blows
3. how to choose the appropriate hammer to achieve the desired result
4. how to select or make the appropriate stake to work on
Students will experiment with making synclastic and anticlastic forms and creating transitions from
one to the other. Multiple ways of manipulating the surface of the metal will be demonstrated
as well as the process for making a spiculum and for decking a form to create a hollow structure.

Also included will be discussions on how to:
1. Quickly make stakes from wood and plastic and a discussion of other appropriate materials
2. Refinish or remake hammers from “Flea Market finds”
3. Make patterns for shell forming designs

The student will leave with a basic understanding of how sheet metal can be worked,
how the tools relate to the end product
and how to translate this knowledge into their own aesthetic to use in whatever way they wish.

Betty Helen Longhi


Betty Helen Longhi
Biography

Betty Helen Longhi is a nationally recognized metalsmith who has worked extensively with forming metal for jewelry and sculpture. She attended the University of Wisconsin and Cranbrook Academy of Art and has studied with Heikki Seppa and Michael Good. Ms. Longhi has given numerous workshops both in the United States and Canada including Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Parsons School of Design, Arrowmont, Peters Valley Craft Center and Penland School. She has been a guest artist at the University of Wisconsin and Maryland Institute of Art. Additionally, she has written a number of articles and reviews for Metalsmith magazine and has lectured on shell forming for the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

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© 2005 Betty Helen Longhi

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