2004 Grant Program

Granting a Wish Come True
By Karen L. Cohen

The Baum School of Art in Allentown, PA is a wonderful place to take workshops. I was first introduced to the school when I attended a workshop for marketing your art, given by Thomas Mann. While there I met the school's director, Ann Lalik, who eventually asked me to teach an enameling class, as they had some enamels and a kiln. I taught my first class at The Baum School in 2003 and, much to my chagrin, the kiln, which was usually used for burnout, was not in great shape for enameling. Although we didn't have everything we could have used, the workshop was a success. We realized, though, that if we really wanted to set up an enameling studio in their metalsmithing area, we needed to buy a new kiln, new enamels, and new equipment. Thus, when The Enamelist Society offered their grant program, I immediately thought of The Baum School as a perfect recipient.

Ann was excited about the possibility of a grant, as the school is a community based art school with a small budget. To get the grant application together, I first went to the school to take inventory of what we had and what we needed. While there, I organized a list of their enamels, which were all leaded. We needed to change to un-leaded, and as some of you probably remember, I organized an email announcement for selling the stock. Ann handled the sale and made about $300. This certainly was a help. I then got a list together of other needed items, including a new kiln; Ann worked up a budget and submitted the grant papers. There was some back and forth working with The Enamelist Society board, but we were finally awarded the grant!

As we already had a list of what was needed, we just had to order. Some compromises had to be made as, for example, we wouldn't have enough money for the kiln I had specified, but we did get a nice model. We mainly ordered from Thompson Enamel, Inc. as Mr. Carpenter was giving a discount for grant awardees on their initial order. That was another bonus for our program and we thank Mr. Carpenter very much. The discount allowed us to purchase more colors than we originally thought we could.

The first workshop, Cloisonné on silver, was conducted in June 2004 and ran for two days. We had 10 students in the class. Most of the students were adults, but we did get two high school students who took the workshop on gift certificates (good idea for a gift!). Of the adult students three were metalsmithing teachers at the school, one of which had taken my original workshop. Another adult in the class had also taken my original Cloisonné workshop. We had one student that had found my website while looking for Cloisonné classes and saw that I was teaching at The Baum School and thus signed up (she was from out of state). All other students were local adults who had no metals background and just wanted to learn enameling. We enjoyed using the new equipment and supplies and found that we had everything we needed.

Part of our grant goals was to train the metalsmithing instructors in enameling so that they could use this technique in their classes. We've achieved this goal, so far, in two ways. One instructor from my class, Heather Sincavage, is working with children, ages 11 - 16. This past summer she taught 3 2-week workshops for children on metalsmithing and introduced enameling. In one, they loved enameling so much they all stopped their metal work. This fall she is teaching an after school program and also introducing enameling as one of the techniques, in addition to basic metalsmithing and casting. The children might use some pre-cut copper forms, but they also saw out their own shapes. Most love working with the millefiore canes, and some are creating copper cloisonné and one student enameled a Champlevé design in a cast ring she made. In general, the students are making small jewelry items like pins and earrings and some are riveting small enamels onto silver jewelry. Heather will be able to expand her offering after taking my copper workshop next April. But she's made a wonderful start and the children are very excited about enameling.

The other achievement of our goal took an interesting twist. The Allentown Art Museum was setting up a show entitled “Paths to Impressionism: French and American Landscape Paintings”, which runs until February 13, 2005. The Museum director, David Brigham, invited the Baum School of Art and Allentown Symphony Hall to partner with the museum by incorporating Impressionism into their own programs during the exhibit. Ann, in turn encouraged the Baum School instructors to present workshop ideas relating to this theme. Martha Westbrook, one of the metalsmith instructors from my class, came up with the idea to teach a workshop on painting with enamels. Martha has a BA and has painted and created other forms of artwork. She decided to use watercolor and acrylic enamels, after getting advice from Bill Helwig, at Thompson Enamel, Inc. She first purchased supplies to experiment with and found that painting in the Impressionist style would be doable and fun. Her workshop, entitled “Impressionist Painting with Enamels” ran in November 2004.

Another goal for the grant was to extend The Baum School's enameling workshop offerings. This will also be achieved by the Spring of 2005 when I will not only be conducting a workshop in the Cloisonné technique (April 2/3), but will also conduct one in copper enameling - basic sifting and surface design, gold leaf application and two techniques working with liquid crackle enamels (April 30/May1). Again we expect some metalsmithing instructors to take the workshops so that they can hone their enameling skills.

The Enamelist Society Grant Program has opened up new learning opportunities at Baum. Metalsmithing students (both beginner and advanced), Community College students, Baum Instructors, and others with no jewelry making experience, are learning about the art of enameling and trying different enameling techniques. The Baum School wishes to thank The Enamelist Society for their generosity and support.