The term in today’s title may not be familiar to you. As I think about possible meanings, I realize there could be several connotations if we consider a literal interpretation of foldforming. Here are a few of the definitions taken from Karen’s dictionary of unknown terms:

1. the folds formed by a garment from being pressed into a suitcase;

2. folds that appear on a face mainly in the later years of life (more commonly known as lines);

3. the formed folding of the human body resulting from an imbalance between calories consumed and calories burned;  .  .  .

We could keep going with those incorrect definitions, but the truth is that foldforming refers to procedures used on metal to create a variety of forms. I’ve been interested in this for several years and finally purchased Charles Lewton-Brain’s book Foldforming. I appreciate the author’s commentary regarding how foldforming can help a practitioner better understand the manner in which metal adapts to folding, hammering, annealing, etc. I’m attempting to work through the book slowly and learn technique as opposed to rushing ahead to just make something new. This particular book is good for my exercise since the author’s goal is teaching technique and I don’t feel that his emphasis is on how to make specific pieces of jewelry. Perhaps due to this, the book hasn’t always gotten the best practitioner reviews.

The procedures in foldforming largely involve folding the metal, hammering the fold and then annealing it with a torch. Then the fold is usually opened creating a line or ridge in the metal. You can see three different line folds in the above pendant.

The second pendant sports a line fold in the center, but I positioned the ridge of the fold in the back. Hammering the edges of the metal produced its expansion and the rippled effect shown in the photo.

Several people have commented that this one looks like a lily pad. I guess I need to go out and search for a little frog bead for the center.

Thus far my foldforming pieces have not received rave reviews. Rather than becoming discouraged, I have admonished myself to remember that I’m learning technique at this point. I believe that it may take a while to make this my own, but don’t dismay – I’ll get there!

By the way, if you are doing any foldforming, here’s hoping it’s all in metal!