Workshopping With: Hydraulic Press Series

SNAG's Workshopping With is virtual workshops that explore technique-based skills, creative processes, and professional practices in jewelry and metalsmithing. Sessions include interactive Q&As, 6-week access to recordings, and opportunities to learn directly from artists and professionals across the field, all while supporting SNAG’s future programming.

This October, we're taking you to four workshops focused on the hydraulic press.

The workshops are available individually, or register for our full series pass and gain access to all four. Watch party options are available to university and college classes. 

Below are the details of each workshop.

Appropriate Technology: Navajo Concho Making + Hydraulic Forming Technology with JJ Otero
Monday, October 19, 7-8pm EST (approximately 1 hour)

What happens when you take a conforming die design used extensively by Navajo and Pueblos silversmiths since the late 1800s and add a hydraulic press? We will explore the advantages and disadvantages in this marriage.

Instructor Bio: JJ Otero (Navajo/Hopi) has been a creative since he can remember as a child singing along to AM radio on the Navajo reservation. This early love for singing carried him through life and eventually into a 20+ career in Information Technology.

Life events and changes eventually made it possible for him to resume artistic endeavors.  This pivot lead him into metalsmithing where his intense drive to be the best he’s capable of despite such a late start in the arts can be seen in his rise.  His journey has trekked through a successful, award winning music career, a prolific two year excursion into painting, an intro to the Native American markets world through his beautifully crafted cradleboards, and his current obsession with jewelry making – a true artist that never understood it until the last six years!

JJ’s outlook guides all things in his life: This moment is perfect and nothing is lacking.  With this intense passion and commitment, JJ’s stamping and texturing styles coupled with a relentless drive to be a well known metalsmith is making his metalwork and personality stand out while he navigates an unexpected passion discovered in his ever-growing art career!

Contemporary Forming: Hydraulic Press with 3D-Printed Dies with Sunyoung Cheong
Saturday, October 24, 2-3pm  (approximately 1 hour)

In this one-hour workshop, you will learn how to use 3D-printed dies with a hydraulic press to create dimensional metal forms. We will begin with a brief presentation, followed by live demonstrations. You will see how custom dies are designed in Rhino, 3D-printed, and used to form sheet metal. The workshop will demonstrate how digital fabrication can introduce new approaches to traditional metalsmithing.

Instructor Bio: Sunyoung Cheong is an artist and educator born in Seoul, South Korea, and based in Topeka, Kansas. She is an assistant professor of metalsmithing and jewelry at the University of Kansas. Her practice integrates digital technologies with traditional metalsmithing techniques, combining materials such as metal, enamel, and mixed media to explore themes of identity, community, and sustainability. She has exhibited nationally and internationally.


Pressing Matters - Emboss - Impress – Express with Jack da Silva
Friday, October 30, 1-4pm EST  (approximately 3 hours)

Various aesthetic affects may be created through embossing. We will see how low relief details
echo and are revealed from both sides of metal objects. Structural applications, symmetrical or
asymmetrical elements, regular patterns and abstract visual textures will be explored. Hydraulic
press is a definite plus, but mallets and wire can be useful as well, within certain limitations.
Forming of the embossed metal will also be covered.

Instructor Bio: Jack da Silva owns and operates Jack da Silva’s Metal Arts Studio. He is a Jewelry & Metal Arts (JMA) Instructor at City College of San Francisco in California of 23 years. Jack recently received a grant through the California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative to develop Fully Online JMA Beginning and Intermediate Fabrication credit courses as a state certified Online Instructor. Over four plus years, Jack guided the vision and design details for the Jewelry Metal Arts lab in the new CCSF-STEAM building, which opened in Summer 2025. 

da Silva is a third-generation gravestone maker from a family business of over 110 years. He has served for over 14 years on numerous nonprofit Board of Directors, including SNAG. Jack has researched and developed a curriculum incorporating ancient and traditional metalworking techniques. His personal artwork is found in permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK, Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, South Korea, Churches in Madeira, Portugal, Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN, Appalachian Center for Craft, TN, Sonny Kamm Teapot Foundation, NC, City Council Chambers, Oakland, CA and other public art installations in Ohio and California.

Next-Level Cuff Bracelets with Peter W Gilroy (of Bonny Doon)
Wednesday, October 28, 7-8pm EST (approximately 1 hour)

People often talk about a hydraulic press as just a big hammer that helps you do things faster and easier. The REAL MAGIC of a hydraulic press is in what it allows you to do that is NOT possible any other way. My first jewelry piece on the hydraulic press was a chunk of an aluminum street sign formed into a reflective bold bracelet in 2009. Since then, I've worked with lots of weird materials, crazy designs, and pushed the boundaries of what is possible in forming bracelets using polyurethane and a hydraulic press. I'll cover the basic methods, tips and tricks, and showcase a bunch of artists who are doing amazing work thanks to press technology.

Instructor Bio: Exploration and pursuit of beauty — my life and my work are a mix of the two.

I grew up in Taos, New Mexico, in the foothills of the Rockies, and I've spent my life climbing rocks, running mountain ridgelines, and skiing steep snow. That's where my inspiration comes from: the forms of mountains and rivers, the texture of the rocks, and the same question of “what's around the next corner?”.
I started as a metalsmith as a teenager, working summers for my uncle, Goldsmith Phil Poirier. I studied photography and built custom furniture for years before finding my way back — this time while working for Bonny Doon Tools, where I picked up machining, die making, and hydraulic forming. I launched my first line of jewelry in 2011, and in the years since have been a steady experiment in pushing tools past what they were built to do. I mostly make wedding and engagement rings, along with one-of-a-kind art pieces, including belt buckles and bolo ties. I love contemporary metals — Damascus stainless, titanium, zirconium — and, of course, gold.

That same curiosity runs through the tool side of my work. I've taught hydraulic forming and die making around the country since 2011, and in 2022 I took over operations of Bonny Doon Tools, continuing the legacy of innovation started by Lee Marshall and Phil Poirier. Designing presses and tooling from the bench, for people who work at one, is some of the most satisfying work I do. Sustainability and American manufacturing guide every decision we make.