5 Questions for Damien Tell us about your favorite instructor or learning experience.
Bruce Dean, an industrial engraver in Sydney Australia was the first real engraver I met. To me at the time, his work was unfathomably crisp and perfect. His mirror image lettering on roll dies for ink branding cigarettes, or embossing dies to stamp the relief crests on the packets, was all on a level unmatched by the gun engravers I had seen, and he insisted I use a microscope if I was to do my best work. I never was able to adapt to his use of tools having no heel, but as with Winston Churchill nearly three decades later, the real benefit was simply talking, absorbing their ethos, and most important, studying their work. Actual advice on how to do it seldom came up, though with Bruce, he did heavily distinguish between amateur work, and the clean professional work that you can charge money for. Good engraving is practice, and lots of it. Doing it! What has inspired you to teach? I have over time given lesson to several beginner engravers, and at least one went on to do some good work. But the things that are really interesting to me are only useful to engravers who have come to grips with the bread and butter of engraving, such as smooth curves, straight lines, clean cuts, and a sense of what makes a design look its best. To give a good engraver another process or technique, and to impart my outlook, my goals, is extremely fulfilling. How did you develop the project for your course? I wanted to create a project that embodies the things that I do in my work, and that I do not see elsewhere. The hard part, is to design something that does just that, but is also within the scope of a two week course. I would like students to have the satisfaction of completing this medallion as an example of new skills learned. I anticipate that some will be much faster than others - and some may have to slow down, but I see this as two weeks of intensive work should result in the creation of a valuable and worthy piece of art.
What do you want students to take away from your course? Those who attend will learn new skills for sure, but I would also like to impart some of my attitude to my work. If students were to leave with new skills and knowledge, and with a new determination to not settle until all avenues of improving the work are exhausted, then I will feel satisfied. It is the way we approach our work, and the drive to achieve our vision that will determine the outcome of each piece. What are you most excited about as an instructor? I have a lot of anticipation of spending two weeks with a bunch of skilled engravers. We hardly ever meet another engraver, and so this will be a huge enjoyment for me. But the real thing for me is that I get to share some of what I have learned from a lifetime of effort. So much of it is common to other engravers of course, but I know I have things to share that will change not just the way people work, but the individuality, the character, and the quality of work they produce. That’s a real payoff.
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