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| Photos courtesy of Bob Moon - (click to enlarge) |
Throughout most of the 1970’s there was a fellow
in town that made quite a name for himself in the art of jewelry making, and as a silversmith and goldsmith.
Bob Moon started his apprenticeship with Joe
Calloway (Joe’s Jail, see posting in October 2011) but felt the need to
keep growing as an artist. He went on to take jewelry
classes in Radford, and afterward set up shop with a leather worker in Myrtle Beach for a while. After two summers
there he came back to finish his last year at Virginia Tech and shared
space in a downtown business known as The
Craftsman.
In the mid 70’s, Kathy Barfield, an
herbalist who had rented a space in The Craftsman as well, and Bob, took a space behind Argabrite’s (now Sharkeys) and named it Silver and Spice. A
few years later, Bob broke out
on his own and eventually began to really
excel in the shop above Mr. Fooz seen in the photo above,
and called it Snowflake Gold & Silver Works. He worked with other silversmiths and goldsmiths,
giving them consignment space there.
Bob
says he remembers as many as ten different silver and goldsmiths working in
Blacksburg during
the 70s. For me personally it was shops like these that made our little town
such a cool place
to live back then.
Bob left the area in the mid 80s and still has a
shop, located in a little mall outside of Chicago, IL.
