ART

THE SORROWS OF PERFECTION

when the artist outdoes the machine

By Kirra Hellfritsch 

One version of perfect

David Cole is a goldsmith turned public sculpture artist. Earlier in his career, when he was involved more in production work, he became fascinated with his own efficiency. When you think about, it’s an old story: man versus machine, the John Brown story. While working on a pendant design, he realized he needed to find a way to be able to consistently replicate components of the pendant to produce more in less time. He began to fabricate little hand-operated machines that would allow for him to create ten times the number of pieces while maintaining design uniformity. It probably would have been impossible if he had created them one by one. He also repurposed antique machines to assist with design replication. Being a perfectionist, he continued in this manner, till he had in a perverse hand-made way become a human factory. From this vantage point he designed jewelry that he could manufacture or should we say human-facture out of this process. What he had was an elegant pendant, simple but versatile enough to be produced in silver, gold, and platinum to accommodate a wide range of customers.

At the show for the pendant people were complimenting him for the classic yet artistic design that represented years of aesthetic refinement. Feeling quite good about himself, he decided to eavesdrop on conversations around the room, anxious to hear what people really thought. Of course, be careful what you wish for, because this is what he heard: “I can’t believe anyone made that by hand, he definitely used lasers. It’s too perfect!” So, this is what we might call the perfectionist’s dilemma.

Perfection times three

The pendant is a beautiful combination of skill and innovation. When Cole chooses the type of steel he’s going to use, he tests multiple metals to see how they cut, etch, respond best to inlaid gold, and polish. Like most metals, ferrous and non-ferrous, steel has different types of grade. Stainless steel is popular in kitchen appliances due to its high corrosion resistance. Carbon steel tends to be the more inexpensive of the steels and is most commonly used in the manufacturing industry from pipes, railways, car leaf springs, etc. Next is alloy steel which is a combination of many metals (Chromium, Cobalt, Molybdenum, Nickel, Tungsten, Vanadium); and lastly tool steel which one can imagine by the name is heat resistant, durable, and strong. All of these steels contain subgroups and have a number of different purposes, so Cole’s knowledge and testing of these metals is crucial to how he designs and produces his work.

After choosing the right metal, Cole attaches it to a lathe, a tool that rotates the workpiece at high speeds allowing for various operations such as cutting, sanding, etc.., to achieve symmetry. He shapes the edges round before cutting them down to the size of the finished piece. The purpose of this is to create symmetrical edges that cannot be achieved from filing and sanding. Next the metal is cut down and measured into consistent sizes, and is ready for a surface sanding and polishing.

Yet another version of perfect

Using a carving tool similar to that of a Pantograph, a device used to recreate an exact image and to change the scale ratio, Cole adds precise carvings and patterns onto the “backside”. A rule of thumb for jewelers is that a finished piece has no “backside” and each side should be given the same amount of consideration. On the “frontside”, Cole uses a technique called Damascene inlay where gold or silver is inlaid in a scored space of oxidized steel. Damascene has a rich history in many parts of the world. The technique comes from Ancient and then was picked up in Asia where you can see it used on old Japanese katana fittings, specifically the Tsuba. Middle Eastern artisans further perfected it and it reached its zenith in Damascus, hence the name. It’s a challenging process with a long history and requires quite a skilled hand and knowledge of the material to pull it off.

Cole loves to collect old hand-operated machines and repurpose them for his needs. He creates fittings for them so that his pendants fit appropriately and consistently. He has also designed a number of hand-operated machines that allow for multiple pieces to be processed at the same time to bring down production costs. The pendants design illustrates an enormous amount of research, forethought, skill set, and technical capabilities. His pendants look simple and flawless, and to a trained eye, you can see his technique is flawless, which of course brings up the question of what makes him different than a machine?

And finally another version of perfect

So how does one value handmade? Does a piece of jewelry have to contain flaws in order to receive the recognition it deserves? In the world before mechanized computer systems that make some of the cheap commercial jewelry nowadays, there were still jewelers that mass produced work; jewelers that created hand operated machines to assist with consistent production. In a world of advancing technologies, suddenly jewelers have the ability to design a ring on a computer program, print it 3D and cast it in precious metal. The skill set, education, and steps still exist but are different than the traditional methods before computers. Are we, as humans, obsessed with flaw and imperfections as the last-ditch effort to hang on to our humanity before everything is replaced by robots?

©Kira Hellfritsch and the CCA Arts Review