Revere Academy keeps metalsmithing alive.
Jewelry arts school — in need of a new home – teaches the skills of old, with nods to the modern
Sitting at a jeweler’s bench, Mary Beth Heishman, a young Las Vegas art teacher, looks through the lens of her magnifying visor and cautiously saws a series of tiny grooves into the surface of the sterling silver rope ring she is creating.
It is one of 18 steps involved in making the ring, which is part of a three-day class at San Francisco’s Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts. The school, founded and run by master goldsmith Alan Revere, has occupied the same light-filled space in a corner suite of the Phelan Building, on Market Street between O’Farrell and Ellis, for 33 years.
Its future is suddenly in jeopardy, Revere said, after the landlord, New York-based developer Thor Equities, exercised a clause in the school’s lease allowing for termination. The school must vacate its space in February. Revere said he had several years remaining on his lease when he got the news. “We were completely devastated,” he said.
Revere is looking at new properties, but knows that finding something might be difficult given skyrocketing San Francisco rents, along with the school’s needs for a gas line for the school’s torches and a location in a safe area near BART.
In the meantime, the Revere school is open and classes are in session. Budding jewelry artists like Heishman will continue to hammer and forge metal into a variety of shapes and sizes for rings, pendants, bracelets and other objects of beauty in the school’s ninth-floor suite.
Joe Stitt, Thor Equities CEO and chairman, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Since the company assumed ownership of the building four years ago, several floors have been cleared of small businesses, many of which were jewelers, Revere said, to make way for larger tenants. Among those who have moved in are Sears Holding Corp. and the high-tech companies Voxer and Appirio.
The impending displacement worries those who are concerned about preserving the school’s ability to offer a wide array of professional-level classes.
“When people ask me, ‘Where would you suggest I take jewelry classes?’ Revere is at the top of my list,” said Dana Singer, executive director of the Society of North American Goldsmiths, an organization for jewelers and metal artists.
And they do, with students coming from as far away as Australia and ranging from beginners to seasoned bench jewelers. About 1,000 students attend each year, and Revere estimates that he has personally instructed more than 25,000 students over the past three decades.
“We try to give people a wide experience with jewelry so they can choose their own path, whether they want to sell on Etsy, become professional jewelers or just be hobbyists,” Revere said.
Las Vegas teacher Heishman sells her silver jewelry on Etsy, but doesn’t handcraft the pieces herself. Instead she carves designs in wax and sends them out to be cast in sterling. “I want to understand what’s possible with silver, so I can take that into account when I go back to my studio,” she said.
Former San Francisco cabbie
Grayson Bourne, an experienced beader, wants to make jewelry that integrates his Native American-influenced beadwork with sterling silver. “I bought a silver bracelet in Gallup, N.M., with three strips of turquoise beads running through it,” he said. “That’s the kind of jewelry I have in mind.”
All instructors work in the industry. Jenny Reeves, a Revere teacher and an up-and-coming jewelry designer, won a coveted spot in the New Designers Gallery at the JA New York trade show in July for her stonelike work in silver and gold. She was one of three Revere graduates selected for the honor.
Other Revere graduates gaining industry recognition include Bree Richey, who won the inaugural Future of Design award this past spring for her architecturally inspired work in sterling silver.
“Richey obviously had great training at Revere, but also learned how to execute her own point of view there,” said New York designer-jewelry marketer Cindy Edelstein, who helped create the Future of Design competition and served as a juror.
Revere classes are small, and students work at their own benches with their own set of tools. Three-day classes cost around $500.
The school has changed over the years, Revere said. Women now make up the bulk of students, whereas men seeking jewelry careers used to predominate. Classes are shorter to better accommodate people’s work schedules. And the price of gold — now topping $1,600 an ounce, up from around $300 an ounce in 1979 — means the metal is used sparingly. “Gold is more of an accent metal today,” Revere said.
Revere, a tall, soft-spoken man in his 60s, is passionate about sharing with students the skills he learned while studying in Germany in the 1970s.
Freelance jewelry and fashion journalist Lorraine DePasque says a school like Revere’s is needed to keep goldsmithing techniques alive. “If someone’s not keeping watch, these arts will be gone before people realize it,” she said.
Yet even with his emphasis on the old, Revere embraces the new. Christine Dhein, the school’s assistant director, teaches an online class in creating eco-friendly jewelry, which includes learning how to recycle gold and silver.
She also teaches iPhone photography. “I teach the students how to create setups and block and bounce light for inexpensive, Web-ready photos,” she said.
Revere recently offered a fourhour class special through Groupon to introduce more people in the Bay Area to making jewelry with metal. Students learned to create a brass pendant using precision tools and traditional techniques.
That said, Revere rejects the culture of instant gratification. “I want students to say when they finish a project or learn a skill, ‘I did a good job at that,’ ” he said, “not that ‘I finished that in 20 seconds.’ ” Maura Hurley is a freelance writer in San Francisco. E-mail style@sfchronicle.com