Notes on Materials and Techniques

  Roll Printing

I use this technique frequently to texture surfaces. It's done by running annealed sheet metal through a rolling mill along with another material that imparts it's texture to the surface under pressure. The other material can be anything-- cut out paper, textured or folded paper, plastic sheet, organic matter. The possibilities are endless. I often roll my silver with a brass plate that I've etched with a black and white photograph or drawn image. Other textures I use are done by hammering or using chasing tools (small chisel-like tools).

  Keum-boo

This is an ancient Korean technique of applying 24 karat gold foil to silver. The gold is laid on the silver and carefully heated just until it fuses to the silver. Gold foil is considerably thicker than gold leaf, but it's rather delicate and it's best to use it on places where it's protected from direct abrasion.

   Stones

It amazes me what incredible stones the earth produces. Many of them are found close to the surface and can be found with a pick and shovel. I like to know the source of the stones I buy. I often buy directly from the person who dug and cut or polished them. The western United States has an array of beautiful jaspers that are hard to rival. I recently became fascinated with Oregon Sunstones when I met a man who lives in Oregon and digs and cuts them himself. They are beautiful and tough little stones with a high refractive index. The boulder opals I use come from Australia. Some are purchased from a man I met who owns a rather primitive small mine, works it with only his brother and cuts and polishes his own opals. He's doing this not because he expects to get fabulously wealthy, but because it's what he likes to do. I love buying from people like this!

Like our other natural resources on this planet, good natural stones are getting harder to find. Most faceted natural stones are enhanced in some way today to make them more attractive. Some of these methods are perfectly acceptable and approved by the industry as sound and permanent. Heat treating can be used to improve or completely change the color of some gems. I have no problem with heat treated stones. I avoid some other enhancements like "filling", in which inclusions (imperfections in the mineral structure) are filled with an oil or other material to make them invisible. Sometimes filling can wear off especially after cleaning.  These treatments do not affect the designation of the stone as "natural" according to the FTC. If it came from the ground it's natural. If it was grown in a lab and has the same mineral structure as a natural stone, it's "synthetic". If it's really glass or something else, it's "imitation".

I often use synthetic sapphires in my work. Several decades ago a method was developed for growing sapphires and rubies (both are the mineral corundum) in a laboratory. In the "flux grown" method natural elements are combined under heat and pressure for 10 to 14 months. Originally it was intended for industrial applications, but it was eventually perfected so well that gem quality material was produced. This material is physically identical to natural sapphire and ruby. It has the same molecular structure, the same hardness, the same refractive index. I have read that the only way one can tell that a flux grown stone is not natural is with special equipment that can reveal that the inclusions have a different appearance than in natural material.  I think this is cool science! And best of all you don't have to strip mine to get the material. All stones that are lab grown in my work are designated as such.

Handmade, one-of-a-kind

I work by myself in my studio. All of my pieces are built one at a time with the exception of a few of the earring designs. In those cases I may make 4 pairs at a time at the most. Because I fabricate everything by hand, even when I make multiples they are never identical. Designs tend to morph over time as I rethink proportions or add elements. Most of the tools I use are hand tools-- saws, files, hammers and torches. Sometimes I start with a stone, sometimes with a piece of paper folded into a form.