For more than 30 years, master goldsmith Alan Revere has been sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm for the goldsmith's art with thousands of students, readers and industry professionals.

If memory serves correctly, he once revealed that he arrived in San Francisco during the 1960s in what else? A hand-painted Volkswagen bus.

Unlike many of the flower children of the time, however, Revere devoted most of his time to learning, working and building a profession. Now, close to three decades later, he is the founder and director of one of the country's most unique jewelry academies, located in a historic building in downtown San Francisco.

Revere grew up in a family of creative individuals; both grandfathers and his mother were art hobbyists. In 1969, after receiving a BA in psychology from the University of Virginia, he took to the road. He landed in an art colony in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he spent two years studying drawing, sculpture and crafts at the local university, learning the basics of design.

It was here that he was introduced to the art of metalwork and as he tells it, from the very first touch of a hammer on a silver band, he discovered his passion for jewelry-making. "Right...