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Mende Bruce works spoons into jewelry at her Cleburne workshop.
The late Liz Smith, taught Mende Bruce silversmith skills, which she now shares with others.
A typesetter’s table from The Fort Worth Press was a gift from Mende’s father.
Mende Bruce works spoons into jewelry at her Cleburne workshop.
The late Liz Smith, taught Mende Bruce silversmith skills, which she now shares with others.
A typesetter’s table from The Fort Worth Press was a gift from Mende’s father.
When Mende Bruce announced in 2011 that she planned to retire after teaching middle school English for 34 years, the high-energy person was asked more than once, “Won’t you go stir crazy?”
She has — and couldn’t ask for more fun.
Her Stir Crazy Studio at her Cleburne home was built especially for turning silver spoons into a silversmith’s jewelry.
“I’ve always loved jewelry,” Bruce said. “Even as a little girl I would always choose some pretty ring or bracelet instead of a toy if I got to pick out a present. Edison’s was my favorite place in the world. I wanted to take my jewelry apart and put it back together again.”
She was introduced to the basics of working with silver through Camp Fire craft classes as a high school junior.
“I joined Camp Fire in the second grade and haven’t missed a summer camp in 53 years,” she said.
She has directed activities and craft classes every summer.
She said that as high school juniors and seniors, Camp Fire members may take silver or leather craft classes. It was then that Bruce was introduced to the late silversmith Elizabeth “Liz” Fisher Smith, a 1944 Cleburne High School graduate. Smith became her instructor and mentor. She felt drawn to the leather and silverwork and to Smith’s skill.
“When I graduated from Cleburne High School in 1972, I enrolled in the University of North Texas,” Bruce said. “I went to her home for lessons and she made me her apprentice. She was such a perfectionist. She required that I stay with a project — hammering, drilling, soldering, sanding, polishing — until it met her qualifications. She taught me a true art.”
Smith eventually gave up her work because of arthritis and gave her jeweler’s anvil, torches, files and saws to Bruce.
After graduation from Tarleton State University in 1976, Bruce began teaching junior high English in Cleburne. She taught silver craft classes at Camp Fire, but by 2010 silver became too costly. She began to use silver plate pieces instead and let the members make key rings.
“We had to use silver plate. A sterling spoon cost $25 to $30 dollars. Actually silver plate is heavily plated with silver; it is dishwasher safe and designed to last a lifetime. It works just fine.”
Smith passed away in 1998, but Bruce’s love of the skill she had taught her only increased after her retirement from teaching.
Every year, Bruce and her friends plan a retreat together after Christmas. In January 2013, an idea she shared with them sparked the birth of her business.
“I told them that I was going to teach them a craft. I lined them up on a porch with hammers and spoons they began to hammer like crazy,” she said. “Marci Boyer Thompson absolutely went to town. She had such a love for it. She and I made several items and gave them away.”
They had so many requests that they worked together in production, using Bruce’s garage.
“We were sitting on pillows on the floor, facing a heater, but absolutely freezing,” she said. “I decided that was crazy, so I later built a workshop for me and Marci has her place to work at her home in Crowley.”
The first item to take off made a dull requirement a thing of beauty. Lanyards have served to display required personal identification at schools for years. Now instead of being clipped to a cord, a chained ID can hang with a hammered spoon with attached charms. Some choose school and university logos.
“Diana Holland had on a spoon lanyard at Wheat [Middle School] and everyone wanted to know where she got it,” Bruce said. “That was it. Marci and I made several and gave them away; as they were worn they became advertising.”
Springfest provided an amazing number of orders. Tutoring two days at Wheat leaves the rest of her week free to work her craft. Bruce’s mother, Bobbie Stringer, told her she needed to add a bathroom to her workshop because she lives there now, she said.
The workshop, though compact, has no wasted space. All her work is done by hand with tools easily accessible. Her dad, Bill Dick Stringer, gave her his drill press and a small typesetting table from the Fort Worth Press where he worked until it closed.
“The table is perfect for hammering,” she said. “It took four men to carry it in here. I had a small anvil, but nothing like this. I use hand files, alphabetic letters to hammer into the silver, jewelry sand paper and fine polish.”
Her source of supply of spoons comes from garage and estate sales, eBay and her friends.
“Friends bring me spoons often. The shapes of spoons vary from teaspoons, tablespoons, serving, sugar, demitasse, jelly, slotted, sugar and salt scoops. Specific patterns can be found on www.silverplate.com, but the most exciting choice happens when customers brings their own silverware with them. A friend recently brought her grandmother’s sterling silver spoons to me and I am making key rings for her grandsons. I can help the customer hammer in the monogrammed initials, themselves, to make them more personal.”
I saw hammered spoon necklaces, bracelets — both leather and chain — school and company lanyards, barrettes, earrings, key chains, bottle tags and more. Personal items may be added as charms, she said.
Bruce’s items will be on sale from 4-8 p.m. Monday at Joshua’s Stop and Shop at Plum Creek Elementary School.
Bruce admits that her father’s work ethic and ongoing construction projects during her childhood inspired her.
“Daddy always had a project, was fixing something or planning something. He was usually outdoors while mother was busy sewing in the house. I remember when he built our first boat. There were no plans available then online, of course. He built it from scratch and it took him about 18 months to do it. Monte, Marty (my brothers) and I spent hours skiing behind that boat.”
She and her dad took stained glass lessons from community education years ago. Her supplies for that are neatly stored inside a defunct Coca Cola machine in her workshop — part of an extensive collection inside her home.
“When I was in grade school, my cousin, Roby Stringer, and I went every Saturday to our grandparents’ Stringer Grocery at 1125 E. Henderson in Cleburne,” she said. “One of our jobs was to fill up the Coke machine, fill the candy machines with gum balls and Boston baked beans, and to stock the shelves.
“The Coca Cola man gave me little items often that have turned into real collector’s prizes. That started my collection. My students and friends knew about it and gave me more. I’ve filled most of my home with the memorabilia now.”
She also has a collection of fountain pens that has taken years to find.
“That collection is probably finished. You don’t see many of them with nibs (points) anymore since they are 14K gold.
“I made some personalized wine bottle tags for friends of my brother. They loved them so much that they offered to market them for me.”
That didn’t appeal to her.
“I don’t want mass production or a job,” she said. “I want to enjoy creating each piece — to keep it fun.”
Jewelry may be viewed at www.facebook.com/stircrazystudio or contact Bruce at batmende@sbcglobal.net or 817-517-3882.
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