From Wave to Shining Wave

The passing of mokume gane master Phillip Baldwin has left a huge whole in the metalsmithing community. I'm grateful to the Seattle Metals Guild and Danaca Design, who are putting on a tribute show for him, as a way to celebrate his life and contributions to our field.  (The title of the show "From Wave to Shining Wave" references his business name, Shining Wave Metals.) The opening will be June 22 up in Seattle, but the show will be online for all to see. I have a fair amount of work in the show, including this tray - a very special piece that will be auctioned off to raise money for a scholarship in Phil's name. I wanted to share a little about how this tray came about, and things I learned while making it.
I was recently in Seattle to teach a class and jumped at the chance to see Phil's studio and meet his widow Layne Goldsmith. It was an important and sobering pilgrimage for me to see where he worked and created - his anvil, his in progress work carefully laid out on a shop towel still waiting for him, soo many great machines, even the fabled liquid salt annealing vat! Layne was so generous with her time; I even saw an amazing sword Phil had made (all the parts, blade to tsuba to hilt). I came away thinking deep thoughts about mortality, and what it means to be a maker.
I also came away with a lot of mokume! Mostly unpatterned billets, they will be appearing in my work and in my students' kits for years to come. I was happy to get the mokume, and pleased that in purchasing it I'm supporting Layne's efforts to start a scholarship in his name at Penland.
A piece of patterned mokume also caught my eye - a 5.5" patterned disc, ready to start forming. It had so much of a feeling of its maker, from the back-hammered thickened edge to the still-visible center mark he used to scribe and saw the disc. It was just begging to become a finished object, and I really wanted to help it. I asked Layne if I could, well, borrow it. I'm so glad she had the trust in me - she said yes! I took it home and it sat on my bench for a while, till I gathered the courage to work with it. My main objective was to not screw it up, and to let Phil's patterning be the star. I confess to thinking some deep thoughts while working on it, like who will do this for me? (Looking at all the unfinished pieces around my studio.)
I wanted to share an amusing anecdote that happened during the making:
Anyone who has taken classes with me knows, I talk all about how after the last time you heat (solder or anneal) mokume, you have to sand all the oxides off if you want your patina to work properly. Thing is, No One really wants to do all that hand sanding - including me apparently! I tried so hard to get out of it while finishing this tray. After soldering on the base, I scrubbed and scrubbed with patina prep and pumice, thinking that *surely* would be enough to remove the surface oxides. Took 45 minutes, and it sure looked clean and shiny!  Put on the Baldwin’s patina and …. Hmm. Was underwhelmed. Sigh. Went back and did what I should have done initially, hand sanded with 240 then 400, which only took a bit over an hour. Worth it!
So, I am hoping this tray will find a new home during the upcoming "From Wave to Shining Wave" show in Seattle. I know Dana is working on a way to put this up for auction - 100% of proceeds will go to the scholarship fund.
And good news - if you're wanting to contribute to the fund, you can also do so directly here at Layne's goFundme campaign.