Of torches and lemonade

On the torch front, yesterday I went to Home Depot and bought a MAPP gas + oxygen torch, mostly because the tanks were in a handy package with the hose and torch and striker -- and it didn't cost too much. I've never heard of MAPP gas much less worked with it. The good news is that it's way hot enough for everything I wanted to do. Much silver has been reticulated this afternoon, to my great satisfaction. On the downside, it's a two-tank deal, which is a bit of a pain. Even more of a down-side, when the gas is burning without oxygen it produces this extremely sooty smoke. It stops once you add sufficient oxygen, but yech. All the spiderwebs on my kitchen ceiling, which had previously been invisible, are now black. I'm trying to think of it as the decorating equivalent of liver of sulfur.

Here are some other pieces I finished at Peters Valley. All the bracelets are sterling silver. The first two were run through a corrugator before being formed with a mold in a hydraulic press. Of the nine pieces I made at PV, I think these are my favorites. The corrugation makes the silver look like it's ruffled, especially in the white bracelet. The patina on the other one blew me away - I've never gotten that many colors from liver of sulfur. As far as I know, it was just LoS in water - but the teacher kept it pre-mixed in a brown glass jar and we brushed it on cold. I've read a bunch of books on jewelry-making in the past year and many of them had "recipes" for using LoS, but none of them recommended keeping it in liquid form. I haven't tried it since I got home, but if this is the kind of patina cold application gives, I'm for it.

For the third bracelet, I fused silver wire to the silver sheet and then ran it through the rolling mill to flatten the wire before molding. The patina on this one isn't as striking - I think it's because this wasn't polished to a high shine like the other one. Finally, this pendant is the last thing I finished at jewelry camp. The stone is a quartz doublet: two layers of quartz with a thin layer of rose gold between. This started out as a way to salvage a mistake. I had domed the pac-man shaped circle, then decided I didn't like it and hammered it flat, which erased most of the texture and made it slightly lopsided. I put it aside and made another one for the piece I was working on. Later I was looking at the pieces I had left over and started playing with some bits of wire and the lopsided pac-man. Something about the arrangement clicked and, with a little extra texturing using a chasing tool, I had a new pendant -- which I actually like better than the original piece I had been trying to make when I made the mistake.

So the lesson for today is "Carry a big torch and make lemonade." Or something like that.

Is it weird enough yet?

A few days ago I posted a picture of a pendant in progress and said that I didn't think it was weird enough. It's now finished and it's definitely weird enough. The question is whether, in the search for belle-laide, I've gone over into totally damn laide. In defense of the pendant, I have to say that this is not a great photo. The color of the pearls is washed out - they're a much more vibrant greenish-purple. I guess that's not actually in defense of the pendant but of the pearls. But the pearls are quite important to the beauty of the pendant, such as it is. (The more I write the more defensive I sound. Not good.) I was debating whether to put it on an oxidized chain or a rubber cord and my partner said it had to be the chain, because the pendant needed to be seen as being worthy of a beautiful chain. Because it's so weird. And ugly. I agree that it needs a chain, a nice substantial one, not for beauty PR purposes but because of the pearls, which seem slightly too formal for a rubber cord.

The pendant still doesn't have a name -- to myself I call it "the weird organic thing" (hereafter, WOT). Last night I suddenly remembered a novel by Samuel Delany called Dhalgren. It's an amazing book - not my favorite of his, but amazing. Set in some kind of post-apocalyptic time, the main character is a semi-amnesiac poet with one shoe. Early in the book he's given a bracelet shaped like a flower, except that the petals are blades, so it's really a weapon. It's called a brass orchid and, later, that's what he names his book of poetry. (Great way to think of poetry, right? Something beautiful that, when wielded well, cuts deep.) I couldn't remember the name of the thing but when I remembered its existence I thought it would be perfect to give the WOT the name of the bracelet/weapon. The petals on the WOT are pretty sharp and pointy and, though it doesn't look the way I had imagined the brass orchid would look, it does have some of that post-apocalyptic dystopian thing going on.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can call the WOT "Brass Orchid". First, it's not made of brass and I don't want people to get the wrong idea. Second, it doesn't look much like an orchid. Third, the description of the brass orchid, which admittedly doesn't make it sound like it looks much like an orchid either, doesn't sound anything like the WOT. The second and third things don't actually bother me that much. Mainly I don't want to have to write a description explaining why I'm calling this thing a brass orchid when it isn't brass. Seems counterproductive.

Not to worry. I can't post the WOT until a shipment of chain arrives so I've got some time to think of another name.

Paris Mystery pendant

This piece recently sold, so I'm "archiving" the description here.
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My first trip to Paris - I couldn't believe I'd finally made it. One afternoon on the Metro I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and looked into the greenest eyes I'd ever seen on a human being. "N'oubliez pas votre parapluie." "What? I'm sorry I don't speak.." At that moment the train lurched into the station and I almost fell to my knees. By the time I collected myself, I was alone in the car. That night I found a key in my pocket with a tag that said "4 Ropon 88-233"...

The pendant is fine silver (99.9%), oxidized to an antique bronze finish. It's 1 inch tall and hangs from a 17 inch gunmetal chain that closes with a lobster clasp.

In search of Daniel Craig

Daniel Craig, the most recent James Bond, isn't what you'd call handsome. The Rolling Stone called him a "rugged, jug-eared Brit, whose irregular features improbably radiate a megawatt star charisma". My partner told me about a French phrase, belle-laide, which means "ugly beauty". That's Craig - it's a look I like, and not just in people.

Yesterday I wrote that the more I work with pmc the less I care about making pretty pieces. It's not that I don't care at all, but sometimes the process is more interesting, more compelling than the final product. So there are times when I have a decent looking piece of silver that could be turned into an acceptably pretty piece of jewelry, but I can't help but push it. I hammer it, torch it, twist it to see what happens. Recently I sold a necklace that I think is very much in the belle-laide category. When I listed it, I honestly didn't think anyone would buy it, though I quite liked it. The first thing my partner said when she saw it was "That's creepy." I named it the Xena pendant (as in Xena, Warrior Princess, a guilty pleasure), but at home we called it The Mouth of Doom. An acquaintance bought it the other night and when she tried it on I was really taken aback at how much better it looked on her than it did in the photographs or even on me. Some pieces of jewelry don't really show you what they are until they're worn by the right person.

Working this way is exciting -- you have to be willing to trust your instincts, take risks, and enjoy the outcome - even if it's not pretty. It also means that sometimes things go terribly wrong and instead of something pretty or even belle-laide, I end up with a bunch of truly ugly bits, like these. I've heard that some places will melt scrap into raw material, but some of these pieces are enameled or have non-silver wire fused into them, so I think that option is out. Perhaps I'll collect a few more of these plug uglies and make a charmless bracelet.

There's a piece I'm working on that's similar to the Xena pendant. It's a combination of heavy gauge sterling silver wire and fine silver and it's really been through the wringer. It's not finished and I've been puzzling about where to go with it for a couple of days. The frame and teeth are sterling silver wire, the organic looking center is pmc - it's sitting on a coiled, fused base of thinner gauge sterling silver wire. What I can't decide is whether to fill the area between the center and the frame with weirdly organic petals or pods or tentacles. And if yes, then what should they be made of? More pmc? pmc touched with gold? more sterling wire? polyclay in odd organic colors and shapes? chunks of enamel? paper? And do I cover up the coiled, fused backside or just let that be part of the design? In other words, how do I move this piece from creepy to Daniel Craig? So far I think I've achieved "rugged", "jug-eared", and "irregular". The question is, how do I get it to "radiate a megawatt star charisma"? Stay tuned.

Come Hither pendant

(sold 5/4/07)

"What should I call it?" I asked, dangling the pendant from a handy dental pick. Her eyes fixed on the red jade facets, she said, "Call it 'Come Hither'. It's...oddly seductive." And she lunged. With a quick twist of the wrist, I flipped the jade and sterling silver pendant over my head and into my vest pocket. The candlelight glinted on the fine point of the dental pick. "You want it?" I said, "Then buy it on Etsy like everyone else."

Epilogue: The handmade (by me) sterling silver pendant and faceted red jade briolette come with a 16" nylon-covered steel cable choker that closes with a magnetic clasp. Dental pick not included.

Ragged Heart pendant

Sold 4/25/07.

I'm not a big fan of heart jewelry. I'm a sentimental fool, a complete romantic, a total sucker for baby animals - but I don't like heart jewelry. So, I was bashing a silver nugget with my trusty hammer the other day and imagine my surprise when I looked at it and saw...a ragged heart. And I realized that what I dislike about so much heart jewelry is that the hearts are all perfect and shiny, with lots of swoops and curls. Whose heart looks like that? Not mine. My heart is sturdy, tough, with lots of scars and wrinkles. It's been around the block and got dragged into some back alleys, but it always emerges stronger. And I imagine it looks kind of like this pendant. Maybe you can relate.

The one-half inch pendant is made of lightly oxidized fine silver (99.9%) and, with its companion rhodonite briolette, hangs from an 18" sterling silver snake chain with toggle clasp, both heavily oxidized for contrast.