When I first started creating jewelry, I was doing a fairly simple wire wrapping of crystals and stones and at some point the sterling wire would simply refuse to budge. Since my focus was on the metaphysical energy of the gemstone, I merely did what I could to make it work so I could wear it. But time after time, try as I might, I couldn’t cajole the metal into doing what my mental vision desired – my sketches never seemed to come to fruition. I looked at the metal as my adversary.
As I studied with some wonderful teachers and artists, I began to learn that it wasn’t that the silver was just being stubborn and refusing to move, it was that I didn’t understand how to work with it. I needed to develop a relationship with the metals and learn more precisely which actions produced the desired effects. In a recent workshop I took on metal fold forming our instructor, Charles Lewton-Brain, told us to let the metal express itself. What a wonderful way to put it!
And so, over the years I’ve gone from that adversarial relationship with precious metals to a deep appreciation of what we can do together, and a curiosity about how they like to be worked with. I’ve seen how fine silver can be used to create lovely weavings, which make the settings in my Woven Dreams collection.
I’ve begun implementing reticulation, which creates an almost topographical texture to the silver. Reticulation involves heating and pickling the silver until the texture begins to surface from the depths of its being. It’s a mesmerizing process that I’ll write more about in a later post. I’m using reticulation on some pieces in the new Bella Terra collection.
Another technique I’m fascinated with and am using in the Bella Terra collection is Keum-boo, the ancient Korean art of attaching gold to silver via fusion bonding simply by using heat and pressure with agate burnishing tools. The process literally changes the structure to atomically bond the metals together creating a stunning burst of gold in the midst of the silver canvas. And if you choose to take it a step further, oxidization will produce a variety of colors on the silver from violet blues to ink black.
The myriad of metalsmithing techniques provides an amazing palette of options and a certain joy and odd rapport with the metal develops through the creation process. This year I plan to explore new ways to work with forming precious metals and am excited to see how they can become little nests for the exquisitely beautiful and energetically powerful stones that are waiting to be worn so they can share their gifts with us all in a most intimate manner.
