Workshops

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/hgtv/ah_antique_jewelry/article/0,,HGTV_3088_1374200,00.html
Click on the video button under the two jewelry pictures.

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

For current workshop schedule scroll down

CURRENT WORKSHOP SCHEDULE 2008

Get Away Workshops

June 8 to 14 (filled); August 9 to 15 (filled)

Other Workshops

Cuffs and Collars
July 3 to July 7
Academy Art Center
Honolulu Academy of Arts; Honolulu, Hawaii
artschool@honoluluacademy.org.
808-532-8741

Cuffs and Collars
July 28 to August 1
Appalachian Center for Craft, Smithville, TN
craftcenter@tntech.edu
931-372-3051

Simple Forming Techniques for Jewelry
September 19 to 21
Metalwerx; Waltham, MA
Ann Cahoon; ann@flyingmarquis.com
978-386-2484

Simple Forming Techniques for Jewelry
September 27 and 28 2008
Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths,
Bucks County Community College, Newton, PA
Lexi Erickson, Jerick99@aol.com
610-573-3841

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