BY TAMARA L. HONAMAN, Step by Step Editor
All photos by Steve Midgett unless otherwise noted.

Let Steve Midgett show you how to use mokume gane in making this "Twist Pattern Bracelet" in Step by Step! What is Mokume Gane? Read more here!

Pod Form pendant, of sterling silver, shakudo, copper, brass, and 18K gold with tsavorite garnets. Photo: Ralph Gabriner.

It’s a beautiful, warm fall morning as I drive through North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains heading toward Franklin in the Smokies. Glimpses of red and gold treetops flash in the sunlight against a backdrop of clear blue sky.

Shield Form pin/pendant of shakudo, sterling silver, copper, brass, and 18K gold with rubies. Photo: Ralph Gabriner.

My destination is the studio of Steve Midgett, jeweler, artist, writer, and master of the art of mokume gane (pronounced moe’-koo-may gah’-nay). Mokume gane is, as Steve succinctly puts it, “an ancient Japanese metalworking technique developed in feudal Japan by master swordsmiths. The name translates as ‘wood grain metal,’ referring to the most popular patterns created with this laminated metals technique, which is akin to Damascus steel.”

As I pull into the driveway of Steve’s unassuming studio, I can’t help but think about the wonderful things that must be going on inside. When I step in, Steve (as he asks me to call him) is on the phone with a customer, so I take advantage of my free time to look around, hoping I won’t seem too nosy in our first five minutes. I’m struck first by the size of the machines. What could he possibly do with these big things that involves making anything as small as jewelry?

When he finishes his call, he welcomes me with a warm smile and a look of contentment on his face. He’s just finalized a sale with a man who’s excited over his soon-to-be nuptials. It’s a pleasant business for Steve to be in, and it shows.

As we tour the studio, my first question is: “How is it possible to get such fine jewelry from machines this large?”

His response is perfect. “I like to think of this room as the oyster,” he says, where he starts to create his “pearls.” It turns out that he uses the machines for making tools and dies to work the metal and to form his billets, the solid stacks of colored metals that are fused, not melted, using high heat and pressure. Then he manipulates the billets by forging, rolling, and carving to develop metal stock with an unlimited number of complex patterns for using in his jewelry.

Snake Bracelet, of sterling silver, copper, shakudo, and 14K gold with rubies.

He emphasizes that he hasn’t always used these machines, though. He started out with only an assortment of jeweler’s tools, a flex-shaft, a lapidary wet-sander, a polishing wheel, a basic rolling mill, and his homemade mini kiln. As his abilities and resources grew, so did his equipment.

Steve also creates large sculptures in this room, which explains the four-foot-long torch aptly named “the flame thrower”! He fires the torch up to show me how it works. The first time he used the torch, he adds, he unknowingly heated up the ceiling and the PVC pipes that run along it, used to pump in the compressed air. As the pipes grew hot, they expanded and then burst. We’re both sure he won’t make the same mistake again — in fact, he makes safety a high priority in all of his work.

We walk over to his bench to see the next phase of operation, the room where the finished jewelry comes from. I can’t help but note the contrasts of the situation: a man who gets to work with big heavy machinery, make tools, and play with fire, and at the end of all this produces exquisite pieces of delicate jewelry.

At first, Steve asks me not to mention or show how unorganized his bench is, but by the end of the day he relents. It is a little unorganized (how many of us have a clean bench when we’re busy?), but it’s also an amazing sight. The bench hugs the entire perimeter of the room and is stocked with wonderful tools, and it is from this wonderful studio that Steve has studied and expanded the practices of mokume gane.

Making wedding bands gives Midgett a special contentment; these are made of 18K yellow, white, and red gold. Photo: Ralph Gabriner.

::HAVING EXPERIMENTED with many ways of creating mokume, Steve has come to prefer diffusion welding the metal layers into a laminate to soldering them together. “Diffusion welding joins the metal by forming an alloy layer that is a combination of the two parent metals being joined,” he explains in his impressive book, Mokume Gane: A Comprehensive Study.

“This is done by exciting the atoms in each layer to a degree of exchange. The depth of this alloy layer is directly related to the temperature of the metals and the time they are held in contact. This phenomenon not only makes it possible to bond different metals together, but can, if unchecked, turn an alternating stack of contrasting metals into one big molten puddle. When diffusion welding two different pieces of metal, you are trying to achieve the thinnest possible alloy layer that will permanently bond the metals together.

“The characteristic of the alloy created between the two parent metals contributes to the laminate’s success or failure. An alloy created when bonding gold and silver is relatively fragile. It won’t hold up well once you try to roll the sheet or apply pattern to it,” he adds. Steve has tried to find ways around this by experimenting with sandwiching a very thin layer of copper between the gold and silver to create a bond alloy that is easier to work. The idea is for the copper to be such a thin layer that it just disappears into the finished product.

As far as he knows, Midgett is the only artist who has successfully used platinum in mokume gane. This Shield Series pin/pendant uses platinum, shakudo, palladium, and silver with diamonds for an understated, pale appearance.

There are four groups of metals used in mokume: pure or alloyed copper, silver, gold, and platinum. Copper works very well in mokume. Its color naturally patinates to a rich wood tone, enhancing any wood-grain appearance. Shakudo, a copper-based alloy, is one of Steve’s favorites. It naturally patinates from a deep purple brown to black and provides a high contrast to most metals. Currently, Steve is experimenting with titanium for the colors it can produce, and likes to work with platinum and titanium combinations.

The main gold Steve works with is called 18K Green, which he say “has a very pleasing color — not green — and excellent working characteristics.” The only white gold he has had any success with is 14K and 18K Palladium White. “This would be the alloy to use if you want a ‘precious’ metals laminate.”

Studying how different alloys behave and how well they are compatible has cost Steve both time and money, but he believes without those losses he would not be where he is today. Without pushing himself, he might never have discovered how to bond platinum with other metals, for example. As far as he knows, he is the first ever to accomplish this.

He also encourages others to experiment, and includes an extensive chart within an overview of metal compatibilities in Mokume Gane: A Comprehensive Study. Develop your own combinations, he urges, and use the information he provides only as a guideline and starting point. For a far briefer overview of mokume, see “What Is Mokume Gane?”

::THE CHALLENGE OF PATTERN::
His interest in jewelry started during his first and only year in college, when he took some jewelry classes in his first semester. The academic world wasn’t for him, though, and he spent a good bit of his second and last semester driving around looking for a jewelry apprenticeship. He found work with a jeweler in Key West, moved to Florida, and has continued to learn and enjoy learning about jewelry ever since.

During his apprenticeship, Steve didn’t earn a salary, but did receive repair work so he could earn a little money on the side. He also worked nights as a janitor and his Dad sent $50 a month to help — all this just to be able to live in a run-down apartment, but he loved it. It was here where he was exposed to mokume for the first time. The technique’s challenging nature and its many unanswered questions drew him in at once and have kept him captive ever since.

Snake Vase of sterling silver, shakudo, nickel silver, and copper.

His biggest challenge came after leaving the apprenticeship, when he was forced to work with only the tools he owned. He couldn’t leave the technique behind just because he couldn’t afford the necessary machinery, so he set out to find a way to pursue mokume with what he already had. After a lot of research and help from experts, he was able to convert what he’d learned about traditional methods into methods suitable for his own smaller scale. From all of this came his first book and video, Mokume Gane for the Small Studio.

Though mokume gane can and is made with numerous types of metal, Steve prefers to work with only two. He feels this gives his jewelry a more elegant look and gives the pattern a chance to come through cleanly, offering a more organic look. Often he creates billets and stores them for later use because he wants to be able to create a pattern specifically for each piece. “In the end,” he says, “it’s what you do with the mokume and how well it suits the finished piece that matters.”

Steve Midgett at work in his studio. Working images by Jacob & Terra Midgett.

He has also worked to be able to reproduce his patterns precisely, a task that took time and patience, which now enables him to carry a specific line of jewelry. To add color or a flash or sparkle, he integrates stones in his work. He likes to use channel setting as it creates a stripe of color and offers control over its placement. He also uses flush settings in his designs, which brings a freer sense to the piece. Steve won a 1999 Niche Award for using this setting in one of his designs. (He’ll be offering a Step by Step project using this technique in an upcoming issue.)

It’s evident in the work that Steve produces that he has a real sense of pattern. He says it didn’t come to him overnight but evolved over time. He believes that pattern is something that should be easy to understand and recognize. It shouldn’t fight our natural ability to access, feel, and understand the pattern’s reference. He explains that the ability to express this comes from experience, and can be mastered if you take the time to examine nature. He believes that what is pleasing to humans is a pattern or shape that is based on one that occurs in nature.

::CRITICAL ACCLAIM::
Steve has received much critical praise. In addition to his Niche Award, he was selected by Jewelers’ Circular-Keystone magazine as one of 7 International Rising Star designers, has taught at the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts in San Francisco as a Master Symposium Instructor, and has written the two books and produced the video previously mentioned about mokume gane, all of which have been well received. These are self-published, though he quickly adds that they exist because of all the help he had with them.

For his Disc Form IV neckpiece, Midgett echoed the wood-grain pattern of the mokume gane with a cut-out that resembled the spaces in a wooden log, revealing a smooth treasure underneath. 18K gold, shakudo, 22K gold, and sterling silver with diamond and rubies.

Mokume is a very difficult technique with little room for error. Choosing metals that are not compatible, not cleaning the metal properly, not firing the billet correctly, or delamination during patterning could cause something to go wrong at any point. Steve encourages everyone interested to keep trying and learning. “Don’t let the failures stop you. You can achieve what you set out to do, learn more from it, and go beyond your expectations. The most important thing is to not give up!”

Happy to share what he has learned, he teaches two-to-four times a year, and enjoys the chance to travel to new places where guest appearances might bring him. A list of the “Top 22 Reasons Why You Should Take Mokume Gane for the Small Shop With Steve Midgett,” created by a recent class, explains the number one reason as (drum roll, please . . . ): “Learning that teachers do come with infinite patience, incredible knowledge, and a wonderful manner of never leaving you feeling stupid!” He is so glad to know that what he believes as a teacher actually comes through to his students.

In Steve’s classes, everyone learns in their own way and at their own pace. “You can’t skip ahead in your own evolution. You need to pursue what you like and apply it to what you enjoy and your own style will evolve. Do not disconnect from your own work,” he stresses. “You can’t get where you really need to go by doing someone else’s designs.”

He tries to look more at a piece for what it is than what it isn’t, and to focus on what someone does, rather than what someone doesn’t do. “Everybody has holes in them; everybody doesn’t do something. I tend to nurture and pull instead of push. You don’t need somebody pushing you into a direction; you need people pulling you, inspiring you.”

Steve does all of this — teaching, running a business, and coming up with new and inventive ways to work with metal — while balancing his family life. He has shared custody of his three children and is able to balance his time with them by working harder during the weeks he doesn’t have them at his house. To see Steve talk about his children or even the mention one of their names is to see a man who is happy and proud.

He is also happy with his work and accomplishments, but he is not done. He is always searching for more problems to solve or questions to answer; figuring out what tools he can make to help solve those questions; what metals work together or don’t; what new way he can push the metal and what directions he can push himself. He is working on new projects that will surely prove gratifying to him and enlightening to those in his field. It’s been a privilege to meet him, and an inspiration, too.

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Tamara L. Honaman is Step by Step Editor and has been with the magazine for four years. She is a jewelry enthusiast, exploring different media and techniques all the time.

Steve Midgett can be reached at his business, Earthshine, by calling 800-374-6423, or via e-mail through his Web site at www.mokume.com.