Silver 1

After almost three years, I've finally put my hesitation aside and started working in silver. If I weren't in a creative profession with deadlines that demanded results, I'd probably never finish anything. As an artist, I've always been far more interested in the idea and process of something than the finished product. After satisfying whatever curiosity that attracted me in the first place, I'm effectively done with it and my mind is already off wandering far before completion. My workspace is a graveyard of stillborn ideas, all somewhat precious but ultimately stunted.

Knowing I'd probably be wasting a ton of money on unfinished pieces, I held off on this even though I've had the resources at hand for years. Anyway, I've realized I'm never going to finish anything if I don't find out how this works and what it can do. Besides, learning new skills and creative goofing around is one of my MOST FAVORITE THINGS EVER. If nothing comes of it, so what? At least I'm having fun!

(Mostly. This still scares me a little. I'm like a freaking miser with this stuff.)

Here are the results of my first experiments. The results are pure silver, not sterling, via PMC:



This first piece focused on using organic matter as a template I could then burn away, leaving my piece. It's almost feather light and captures all the detail of the original leaf. I did only a light surface buffing with a wire brush to keep a somewhat dull finish. A metal stylus added emphasis to the veins. Haven't a clue what I'll do with this yet. Necklace? Hair thingy?



When the pieces came out of the kiln, they were a dull and dusty white, like the piece on the right. Depending how hard you burnish the metal, you can get a variety of finishes. I made one leaf highly reflective (not shown) but I wasn't a fan of the look. I've been reserving that for only details now.



This was an experiment using dead matter as a base and I still got the same level of detail. The shape isn't all that great, but it's a leaf from my friend Niv's garden, so I love it anyway. A permanent reminder there's such a thing as sunny and verdant Novembers I guess.



This is something I made with the leftovers of a piece I'm not going to post yet. The original was a bezel pendant, but I have yet to create the feature which goes in the setting, so it would be pointless. This extra bit I turned into a texture experiment, later playing with mixed amounts of surface burnishing. It's pretty 'meh', but I learned from it. Haha man, I made so many dumb mistakes on this one. I'll probably use it as as the tester when I start experimenting with patinas.

Anyway, I just started a class on this so I'll probably have more to post soon. I already began this fish thing that might be interesting. We'll see. Also I'm excited to learn the patina process. I have all the chemicals ready to go, I just don't know how to use them yet. But just owning something called "Liver of Sulfur" makes me swoon. YAY!