Silver has well-known properties in jewelry art. For example,
it blackens easily from exposure to the environment.
Sulfur and nitrogen dioxide and trioxide gases,
which are present in the air as pollutants,
react with the surface of the silver to form black
compounds such as silver nitrate and silver sulfide. This happens especially fast on unpolished or matte surfaces.
From my earliest work, I very much wanted to use this property of silver as
part of the design process – using the contrasting white and black surfaces.
This is made easier by covering a surface with oxide, a liquid sold in shops
for jewelers that allows us to blacken the silver. The metal can be made as dark as you like,
while you are watching it. The untreated surface (sealed from exposure to the liquid oxide) remains silver-white.
“Leaves” earrings with black and white silver surface.
I found there was a problem in keeping this contrast fresh and vibrant, because white silver naturally darkens faster than blackened silver. If the design in a jewelry piece
I
n the jewelry class, the other participants were turning out "works of art" by the dozen. I was not so successful... but I didn't envy them.
There was a lot of fast soldering and cutting going on, but the results were inaccurate and looked amateurish - objects that could not be properly called "a jeweller's work." What's the point in following your creative impulses, if the products are low quality and unprofessional?
Once upon a time, I did pictures on fabric with the batik dyeing method, an impulsive art form that occasionally struck me as a passing mood. My mood of the day would dictate the color scheme, and my mood of the moment would guide my placement and shaping of the color spots.
While learning jewelry technique, I saw the oxidation effects on silver, and the combination of bright and darkened metal invited me to play on it in the same way. At this time, we were also learning how to frame a gem. So I added Rose Quartz to my "batik" silver piece.
Thus, I suddenly and unintentionally produced my first complete design: a silver pendant and ring with pink quartz. The name was given to it by my daughter Julia: "Sand and Water."
I myself could not decide if I liked the visual results or not. But two things were clear and satisfying to me:
(1) It was not like mainstream jewelery, and
(2) It was quality work.
The beginning of the story
