Live It & Learn It
project and conversation I have with
customers and industry colleagues. I
currently have an apprentice, and it is
helping me instruct her learning, too.”
But Was She Serious?
Sarah Graham’s job at a San Diego
jewelry store piqued her interest
in jewelry making — so much so
she spent her days off in the store
watching the jeweler. “He had me
start by cutting shapes out of a plate
of metal,” she says. “It was enough
to whet my appetite.”
When she looked for an appren-
ticeship, she found Ronald Hentges
of D’Lanor Jewelers in Carmel, Cali-
fornia. At their fi rst meeting Hentges
“said he would give me one week of
testing and he would take me on if
I passed. But before he would even
do that, I had to wait a year.” That
was the fi rst test: how committed
was Graham? Would her interest still
be strong a year later? It was and
she returned.
For her fi rst task, she was given a
brass rod about one inch in diam-
eter and 12 inches long. “You had
to fi le that surface fl at, using a steel
square. It had to be fl at. I spent the
entire day fi ling it.” She was later
tasked with making her own drill
bits. She annealed the steel, twisted
it, and put a tip on it. “You passed
if you drilled a hole with it and got
a perfect curl of metal.” She was
then given a square of brass fi led at
an angle. “You had to drill through
it straight down and through the
middle.” The tests enabled Hentges
to see if his potential apprentice
could see if something was straight,
if it was square, and if she could
stick to a task.
Graham went to work every day,
full time, and in the beginning,
without pay. “He had a formal cur-
riculum,” says Graham, and at the
time another apprentice who had
started the previous year. Hentges
had a book with a variety of projects
in it, and apprentices were expected
to work their way through them. For
example, she says, in a half round
silver band, she was expected to fi le
three rows of diamond shape so that
all the points met up.
Eventually, apprentices were set
to work on the store’s line of charms
and were paid by the piece. “It took
a year before I started making some
money,” says Graham. She was also
expected to continue doing projects
The Case for
Apprenticeship
Nanz Aalund has really delved
into this topic. A thank you to her
for mentioning the Canadian study
on the profi tability of apprentices,
which was recommended to her
by Charles Lewton-Brain. If you
hope to convince someone to off er
you an apprenticeship, it might be
worth reading: “It Pays to Hire an
Apprentice: Calculating the Return
on Training Investment for Skilled
Trades Employers in Canada,” June
2009 (www.wi-cwi.org/council/2014/
morgan_apprenticeship_canada_
roi_011514.pdf).
You may also need to explain to
a jeweler what’s involved, simply
because so few jewelers now
work with this system. Aalund’s
book, A Jeweler’s Guide to
Apprenticeships, published through
MJSA’s BEaJEWELER initiative, is
a great resource. It will give you
both ideas about how a successful
apprenticeship should be structured,
and what you both should expect to
give and to receive. More information
at https://mjsa.org/career_resources/
apprenticeship_guide.
Jim Grahl
Necklace
Diamonds, platinum, Japanese keishe pearls
PHOTO: COURTESY J. GRAHL DESIGN
Where Are
the Masters?
STATE OF THE ART’S INDUSTRY,
PAGE 72
68 LAPIDARY JOURNAL JEWELRY ARTIST