Many years ago, I took a metal smithing class to relieve stress. I had changed from teaching in a highly elite private school to teaching science in an inner city middle school! I fell in love with metal smithing - the art of manipulating the metal to create works of art.
I like to call on my years of teaching science in my metal smithing - the melting points of metals, the chemistry of color changes, and the exchange of electrons in gold and silver. My love of nature carries over from my science teaching into some of my work. I love creating leaves and flowers, and other nature based designs. Now, retired from teaching, I devote full time to my jewelry making. I have traveled the country to study with some of the most well known jewelry artists in the United States. One of my favorite forms of jewelry art is an ancient technique called chasing and repousse. In this art, the entire design is hammed into the piece using small stakes and a relatively small hammer. The pegasus to the right shows an example of this art. Another type of jewelry I love to create is jewelry that says something positive to the person wearing that piece. Each of these pieces has a positive saying or an entire quotation to remind the person wearing the piece that they are valuable in this world. Such a piece is shown below. This one shows a quote by Helen Keller which says: "Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I may be in, therein to be complete." |