Layout for engraved silver fish trowel | | We are excited to announce that the Emerging Artist of our 2025 Fall Gathering is Megan Cantwell! | | |
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Whether or not they realize it, all craftspeople work in conversation with the past. The tools, techniques, and forms we use today are all inherited from ancestor artisans who walked a much harder road to discover them. As an apprentice silversmith at Colonial Williamsburg, Megan Cantwell tries to walk in the shoes of smiths of yore in the most literal sense. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is a living museum that presents the culture, architecture, and crafts of 18th Century America in an immersive, tangible experience. Their extensive team of artisans cover a range of crafts all using historic tools and methods in period accurate settings and clothing. This exercise is not only for the benefit of Colonial Williamsburg’s many visitors, but also for the preservation of these crafts. Studying craft in as complete historic context as possible is a research project into the very hand motions of artists long gone. While all craftspeople are in conversation with their predecessors, the craftspeople of Colonial Williamsburg are trying to speak directly in their forgotten languages.
| | The silversmith workshop is housed in the James Craig Jeweller shop. See the period accurate workshop within complete with wooden grid floor designed to catch filings. | | Tolkien's own watercolor illustration of the eleven realm Rivendell | |
From an early age, Megan consumed documentaries on the civilizations of the ancient world, fascinated by the details of how people lived as witnessed by the things they made and left behind. She also walked the worlds of fantasy novels, especially Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, finding inspiration in the wonders of make-believe civilizations. These twin explorations fed a lifelong interest in art and making things. | | Drawing from this love of story telling and imagined worlds, Megan earned a BFA in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University, with a particular interest in animation and video design. She worked for several years doing various post production work for TV, but quickly learned that a career in the field would never realize her love of the art form and began looking for something else that would better satisfy that incessant creative itch. When she discovered that Colonial Williamsburg offered a range of historic craft internships, she applied to every single one and told them that she would keep applying until she earned one. She was accepted into one of the ten-week programs at the foundry. “I was hooked,” she says of her first taste of metal work. | | Engraved and pierced silver fish trowel and hand raised silver bowl and cups | | |
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Filling rough castings at the foundry introduced Megan to working with silver, and she, “fell in love,” with the material. After her tenure at the foundry was up, she was accepted to the silversmith internship. Megan excelled in the program and her ten weeks were extended repeatedly until almost a full year and the program’s funding were spent. Megan endured a few years in the wilderness before a silversmith apprenticeship position opened up, and she was hired. Since then, learning and showcasing traditional silversmithing has been Megan’s full-time job. She has raised forms and engraved ornate open-work, all by hand in the traditional styles and techniques. The quality and care in her work is evidence of a clear reverence to her craft and enjoyment of the process. Being paid to learn and have the ability to make a living in craft has been a transformative experience. Her interest in metalsmithing has broadened beyond silver, including exploration into copper repoussé. Megan is eager to learn as much as she can as her journey in craft continues. Her introduction to the craft through historic methods provides a unique foundation as she branches out. Megan, an avid video gamer and heavy metal fan, is not someone with wistful eyes for the past averse to modern methods, but rather finds humbling inspiration in what was achieved by past generations. “We are here to forge ahead for the future and for that to happen, then we must appreciate, preserve, and acknowledge the past.”
| | Megan shaping work at the stake anvil and blow pipe soldering. A tea cup assembled on the bench and ready for polishing. | | | | Adventures into repoussé | | | |
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Young and eager craftspeople like Megan Cantwell are exactly who the Plumier Foundation aims to be an asset to. While we do not yet have the resources for full-time apprenticeship programs or residencies like the excellent program at Colonial Williamsburg, we have been fostering the careers of young craftspeople since our inception. One resource that we have is an unmatched community of artists and professional craftspeople who have worked at the highest level of their fields. We have found that connecting craftspeople early in their career with those who have reached success down that same hard roads is one of the most efficient ways of compressing learning curves while also ensuring the preservation of craft knowledge for the next generation. By the nature of the Plumier experiment, our community is comprised of people eager to share what they have learned—all we really have to do is bring the right people together. Our Fall Gathering is the event of the year for these connections. Programs like our Emerging Artist Program, which will sponsor Megan to come to our Fall Gathering to meet our community and make valuable connections, are not possible without the generous support of our members. We are already seeing incredible results from these same connections made over our four short years of operation.
| | If you would like to sponsor more young artists to come to our Fall Gathering and other upcoming events, consider contributing directly to that effort through our scholarship fund. | | |
The Plumier Fall Gathering will be held October 17-19 in Saltsburg, PA.
The program will begin Friday morning at 9 and conclude Sunday at noon.
Tickets for the weekend are $650. Plus-one tickets are $150. This will include lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday.
To register, please email jackie@plumier.org.
Space is extremely limited, so if you are interested, register ASAP.
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Support Ornamental Turning, Support Plumier. You can donate through the Join Us! page on our website, Donate Here.
We have also set up a Go Fund Me page which accepts donations of any size with more flexibility. It can be found here, Donate Through Go Fund Me.
A check sent to the address below is also a welcomed form of donation.
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