The wish to make something beautiful was what pulled me towards this work. Having no special interest in jewellery, I had absolutely no image, at the beginning, of the possibility of this being my future profession. Initially, this work was more like creating fantasies; it had little to do with learning a grounded and practical earthly profession. More like playing a part in a fairy-tale dream of creating that ‘Magical Ring’… the ring that may fulfill one’s hearts desire. I knew next to nothing about jewellery making… I thought learning the craft by simply doing it was the way to start. I figured it should take perhaps a year or so of practice to become proficient to the extent that I would be able to create at least some of what I wanted, and make a simple living. In time, however, it became clear this work would take many years to learn. Now I see that learning this art/craft is a never ending journey.

During these years, there was no money for schools, and anyway, who would think of formal education… being in India, living outside conventional societies. A formal goldsmith’s education was associated with that jewellery industry image of the time, as greedy, artistically boring, and energetically impure.
A sensible approach then would have been to find an Indian or Nepali Master-Goldsmith to sit with, and learn the local traditional ways. There was a family in Nepal some people I knew learned with, I visited them but did not stay. I wanted to use modern western tools, and perhaps I was too proud to see how little I actually knew…

That summer I worked off a balcony up above Manali in the Kulu valley of the Indian Himalaya, with this overwhelming view of nature all around. I was just sitting there alone, in awe, trying to manage basic jewellery techniques; it took me days to accomplish soldering a silver buckle with a mini butane torch in one hand and a 2-rupee blowpipe blown through a kerosene lamp in the other.

During these early years, the idea was to keep only the minimum tools one could carry while traveling.
Eventually the tools got too heavy… and the limitations of moving made me ‘park’ (as my neighbor at the time used to say) the bags of my ‘studio’ in Pune, India, this seemed to be the best option at the time, it was around 1997.

Pune, or rather the Osho Ashram (which was no longer really an Ashram but we still called it so) was an exciting place in the early 90’s. Yet by the time I finally ‘parked’ there and rented a house the place was already changing. Slowly at first - fields began to give way to construction sites, and the sleepy roads became congested. Pollution levels rose steadily, mirroring changing India.

In India, over the years, very special working relationships develop with local families that connected to the gold and jewellery trade. (Moreover, you do not have to be doing big business for that.) It makes some things very easy.  Like buying gold, (which I did always from the same family) was only a phone call away; the boy who in time grew up to be a nice young man and a friend would bring me the few grams I needed, perhaps just enough to make only one ring. He would bring it wrapped in a piece of newspaper, the weight marked in the corner, and the gold already alloyed to my needs. We had trust, and I wouldn’t check the weight of the gold. For less then a dollar they would refine any amount of gold filings, making it possible for me to go on working, with just enough to finish a piece. I got by, literally from ring to ring.   

In those days, money was very short, often even for rent.
The best working space during those years was a simple hut on the roof of the house where we stayed. I slept and worked there throughout the seasons. The hut had no walls, just mosquito netting with a bamboo structure and a Chataya [bamboo mat] and plastic sheet roof, outside were many plants and trees. From up there the city seemed far away, the open space was helpful for creativity, and some of my more beautiful works happened there.At the end of that year, the studio in Pune went into trunks and I left, travelling, but shortly after I had to go to Israel for family matters.Taking what I could carry, or thought I’d need, I left the heaver tools in India, and set to work from a temporary working space in Israel. There it seemed that the studio would remain until a place was found somewhere in the world, where it felt right to live and work.

I now work from a very good custom and homemade goldsmith’s bench, with more and better tools than the old setup I had in India. Fresh opportunities to learn new techniques opened as well. Many technical issues and supplies are a lot simpler to manage than in India.
India is still where I find most of the stones I use in my work, diamonds are available, expensive, and simple to buy in Israel, but other gemstones are a different story altogether, far unlike the beautiful possibilities that India has to offer.
 
For the last couple of years I’m working mostly with a variation of the traditional technique of Chasing & Repoussé. I call it ‘Micro Chasing’ as it is essentially the same technique, yet a lot smaller and detailed. ‘Micro-Chasing’ opens a store full of possibilities, and it feels as if it takes my creativity within the jewellery making form, a step deeper 

In Israel at the gem setting and jewellery making school of the teacher, Maziar I participated in a course titled ‘Advanced Diamond setting’. This was my first workshop or class of any kind in all these years.

I remember, a friend saying how back in design school the teachers would laugh at the word ‘beautiful’. Yet to me the quest for beauty is the central motivation in the making of jewellery.
I do have but little understanding of modern art and design.   

Finally, after sharing my story as a goldsmith… there is something I wish to ‘send’ into the future, sort of a bottle in this cyber ocean…  I’m looking to find someone who may come in to work with me!

The understanding of the need to change certain elements in the way I work has been with me for quite a while. It has to do with seeing the beautiful potential of this work but also my limitations. Which areas of this work I am good at and which I am not. Planning, managing a small business, and perhaps creating and running a less costly, quicker to make secondary line of jewellery, jewellery affordable more to the many friends who find my work of recent years too expensive for their budgets.  

I am looking for some form of partnership. Knowing the complexity of partnerships and the difficulties in finding the person with whom this can work out, I am also open to other possible ways of working with another person…
A simple way would be to employ, and I may do at one point. Yet I do not really want to, for now, without an established location for the studio and enough income to pay another person, employing is out of the question…

One traditional way would be to take in an apprentice, and although I am far from being a qualified teacher, I still have my years of ‘non main-stream’ experience to share…
Anyone is welcome to contact me regarding this.   
Out of this background, developed style techniques and methods of work, which are unconventional, fully hand made, and often demand a lot of time to do well. 

As for now, I am looking for the right place to setup the studio. Feeling seeing, the beautiful potential that is still to manifest through this work, filled with new opportunities and openings.
Love and Light

Akash
Jan 2009