In September, I bought a cheap propane torch with a hose for melting/recycling my own silver. I was so scared to use it, despite recycling silver being an integral part of my design and creative process. Worried about gas leaks, about explosions, about if my fan ventilation was strong enough, the new tool sat unused in my studio for two full months. I was lucky to receive an order for two custom engagement rings, which both called for a thick band. But even then, I was too nervous to use the propane torch. Without reluctance, I took off the silver bracelet I’d been wearing for two years and forged it into the rings.

Eventually, I ran out of silver scrap that was large enough to accommodate the varied sizes of silver I needed for new pieces. I mustered up the bravery (with a friend who came to help supervise with a fire extinguisher nearby) and lit the torch. Nothing blew up, and I melted my scrap into the first ingot in my (no longer so) new studio.

When handled with intention and care, silver can take many forms. Like the bracelet, it can be reshaped. Silver can be melted down again and again—though often needs to be refined because other metals such as in solder get mixed in. Silver can be poured as a liquid into a mold, it can be cut and soldered like constructing a cardboard house, and it can be pushed and hammered into a 3-dimensional form. I am constantly surprised at how versatile creating with metal can be.

It is the expansiveness and possibility of a single material that intrigues me so deeply. The question of how to successfully shape silver into the form I imagine challenges me and grounds me. This is the question that makes the accounting, the Instagram advertising, the full day markets all worth it. At my bench, I am again playing with legos on my childhood bedroom floor, I am again gathering twigs to make a fence for the fairy house. Problem solving construction of something so small as a piece of jewelry brings me out of my doubts and fears and into a spirit of curiosity, into a space of listening.

When silver metal is hammered, stretched, or formed, it becomes work-hardened. The pressure from a hammer, for example, causes particles to migrate from their ideal atomic structure and dislocate. The metal becomes brittle, breakable, stressed. More and more pressure will cause the metal to crack. One has to pay attention to the feel of the metal, the sound even. Otherwise the metal will become too hard and risk cleaving the whole piece.

When I am hardened by work, it’s hard to know where the stress is located, where there is too much pressure and disorganization. I often forget what I’m trying to do with this craft. The pressures of social media marketing, microtrends, and even the expectation to scale the business and increase production weigh on me. I experience a daily tug of war between honoring a slow craft process and packaging my practice to fit what I perceive will make the business go viral. At the same time, I’m trying to determine the next steps in my life (graduate school, moving cities, if I want to focus on my health research career instead of pebble). The constant online advice I didn’t ask for makes it harder to be satisfied in the speed of my craft; the pressure to ramp up sales, followers, and clout make it harder to be a grounded human in the face of more and more unprecedented times. If I am fighting daily battles with myself to keep my attention on the frustrating process of trying to financially sustain my art practice, there is not much energy left for fighting the battles against the many injustices and violences in the world. What is it all for, if I’m not serving the community?

I believe humans need ritualized objects, whether they are religious, kitschy, or glamorous. Our human ancestors made things from their environment, and there has always been a distinctness of fine craftsmanship. It is the very act of slowing down to intimately work with a material that infuses objects with a spiritual energy and meaning that can be felt by others. This is one of the lessons I learned from the artisans in Nepal.

Despite feeling like—knowing— I have this opportunity to chase my dream of being an artist, I feel confused and lost on my path. I forget what it is I am trying to do, I forget what I mean when I say I dream of making beautiful things.

The answer to metal becoming work-hardened is my propane torch. Heat breaks the bonds between atoms, freeing them to move about. Sterling silver needs to be heated to 1100°F for the atoms to rearrange themselves to reduce stress. Sterling silver melts at 1640°F. It’s very important for to recognize how long to heat metal with different torches so that the piece doesn’t melt. With now broken bonds, the atoms dance towards their equilibrium state.

One of my favorite things to do is melt my scrap silver into an ingot and roll it out into wire or sheet that is the exact thickness that I need. There’s something about the resourcefulness for sure, and the saving money part (premade wire and sheet is EXPENSIVE). But there is another reason I like to make my own wire. These extra steps reveal a subtly in the silver. I am learning to listen and to know when the metal is becoming too stressed. Learning to notice how to see what temperature I’m heating the work so that it can anneal, but not melt. Learning to see the beginning of cracks and address them before it becomes a problem.

To me, being an artist is learning to listen. To make something, I need to first listening to the world, the environment, the community, to the self. The intimacy of slow craft cannot be heard while trying to keep pace with a fast trend cycle. Craft requires time away from fast distractions, like watching leaf after leaf fall from trees until we suddenly here in winter. I cannot organize for a more just future if I am constantly taking in information of what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to feel. We as creative creatures need space to work things out on our own, to try and build and fail.

I began writing this blog essay a few months ago on a day when I couldn’t get myself to work on metal. I remember sitting at my studio crying as I typed, understanding that I wanted to be in flow with my craft but not knowing how to get back to what inspired me most. I try and try and try but I can never force myself to have a good idea. It’s true that an art practice is a PRACTICE, and requires constant showing up, but for me there is simply no repeating cycle to the ebbs and flows of creative block, external pressure, peace, fulfillment, or external praise. I learn and make mistakes and learn and integrate and rest and am tested and learn and rest and integrate and succeed and rest and learn and am tested and fail.

Once metal is heated, the atoms find their balance. A a new crystal structure is formed as the silver cools. The metal is now annealed, meaning it can be further stretched, hammered, or formed.

Looking back, this path has certainly been leading me somewhere—it’s not like I am in the same spot I was in July. I have blissful days in the studio where I engineer new designs and don’t get delayed by any mistakes. There are also days where I spend the whole day trying to build one small piece and leave defeated with no success. Though the emotion on these days are different, one is not better than the other in the process of becoming “an artist”. The becoming is emergent, shifting as the circumstances and stories change. Holding fast to narratives that I’m not choosing for myself is sure to harden me and make me susceptible to breaking. I don’t want to break, I want to dance

What care do I need to break the bonds that make me rigid, so that I might be soft enough to take on new forms?

bending not breaking

communion, craft, and solidarity