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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 2011

Get Away Workshop Schedule 2011

June 13 to 19; July 16 to 22

For those interested in my 2011 or 2012 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 2011 or 2012 workshop, please contact me and I will put you on my 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.

Workshops

Fold Forming with Shell Forming
January 22 – 23, 2011
Sawtooth School for Visual Art; Winston-Salem, NC
Contact:
Sarah Stine: 336-723-7395
www.sawtooth.org



Forming Techniques for Jewelry
February 11-13 and February 18-20, 2011
Metal Arts Society of Southern California
Contact:
Corliss Rose: corliss@media-enterprises.com

A Fresh Approach to Spiculums
March 4 – 6, 2011
Arizona Designer Craftsmen
Contact
Jeanne Jerousek-McAninch
jemcaninch@cox.net



Creating Beads by Shell Forming
April 16-17, 2011
Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths
Wayne Art Center
Contact:
Loretta Tryon; ltryon@ptd.net



Creating by Forming Metal
August 7-19, 2011
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts
Contact:
Nancy James: njames@arrowmont.org



Fold Forming with Shell Forming
September 15-18, 2011
Metalwerx; Waltham, MA
Contact:
Lindsay Greenwald: Lindsay@metalwerx.com
978-386-2484

 

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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