Making a line of jewelry
How Ben Beatty makes a line of original gold or silver jewelry:
Beatty makes a wax carving in the shape he wants the piece to be.
He puts that wax piece in a plaster-of-paris-like material.
He gradually heats the plaster brick to melt out the wax, leaving a negative impression.
He injects metal into the plaster to cast his “original” in metal. But to get the metal out, he has to cool the form rapidly in water, which makes the plaster dissolve away. He’s left with a metal positive.
He then finishes the positive to a perfect sheen, and forms molten rubber around it to make another negative. The rubber negative can be used to make as many wax positives as he’d like — which he’ll need if he doesn’t want to cast each finished piece individually.
He connects the several wax positives to make a wax “tree.”
By forming the plaster around the tree for one final negative, he makes a path into which molten silver or gold can be injected.
By Brandon Smith-Hebson
Staff Writer
A local jewelry designer has fashioned a line of cuff links, necklace pendants, and charm bracelet charms using Frank Lloyd Wright’s design for a decorative urn.
Ben Beatty is the designer, and the pieces are being sold in the Westcott House museum store. Profits from the sales are going to the Westcott House foundation.
“We’re happy that we’re able to connect to our community like this,” said Mary Beatty, Ben’s wife and business partner.
The massive urns in front of the Westcott House make it unique among Wright’s homes, said Marta Wojcik, director of the foundation.
It’s fitting that Beatty would latch onto Wright’s work. Like Wright and other pre-eminent artists in modern times, Beatty is good at what he does, he knows it, and he’s obsessive about his craft.
He and Mary made sure his cluttered workshop was visible from the polished showroom floor. It’s full of instruments large and small, from hand tools sharpened using special geometrical formulas, to kilns, to centrifuges. A wooden bench is littered with wax shavings, the evidence of a working designer. A showcase features several awards for Beatty’s designs.
But while some of his instruments have computer-like controls, Beatty doesn’t subscribe to the computer-designed, computer-produced product.
“There’s no art in that,” he said.
“The quality of a piece is determined by its fineness,” Beatty said. And in this instance, at least yet, computers just can’t live up to long-time masters of the craft.
“You can really tell the difference,” he said.
And all these years at the work bench seems to have only made him more excited.
“Some days I can’t wait to come into work, maybe because I’m on the verge of getting some new (technique) to work. It’s like, after 35 years, I’m finally getting it.”
The Beattys’ shop, Goldesign Jewelers, has a rather basic presence on the Internet — maybe to encourage customers to drop by the shop, at 2200 N. Limestone St., suite 110. The couple have sold jewelry in Springfield since 1980.
The Westcott urn pieces are cast in silver and range in price from $75 to $195.
Beatty went to trade school for jewelry-making in 1975, and ever since, he’s been making beautiful things in miniature.
In the early 1980s, when the Beattys set up shop in Springfield, they cultivated a client base that could afford well-crafted jewelry, Beatty said.
Now, he said, he owes his gratitude to the children of many of those original customers, who continued their parents’ loyalty to the business.
But Goldesign’s success isn’t all wealthy patronage. One of their best marketing tools has been a slew of pro bono work: donating pieces to local nonprofits, like the Westcott House, so they can sell them for funding.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0353 or bsmith@coxohio.com.