Silversmithing

Hammerhead Shark Ring

Processes: Hand carved in wax, Investment cast in silver, Hand sanded and polished to a mirror finish

This ring abstracts the form of a hammerhead shark. It was hand carved from wax and then investment cast in silver. I chose to draw attention to its imposing yet graceful presence through the contrasting forms of the convex tail and the concave head and their seamless intersection.

Fish Earrings

Processes: Piercing in bronze and silver sheet metal, Hand sanded and polished to a mirror finish

This project was pierced out of sheet silver and bronze and plays at the theme of dead versus alive. The alive fish takes a soft form with rounded edges and a warm bronze color. The dead fish takes a harsh form with sharp angles, straight lines, and a cool silver color.

Delicate Arch Pendant

Processes: Hand carved in wax, Investment cast in silver, Soldering, Hand sanded and polished to a mirror finish

This piece was designed as a gift for my sister to memorialize our month-long national park road trip. It alludes to the form of Delicate Arch, the poster child of Arches National Park and where we had one of our most memorable moments of the whole trip. The piece plays with a contrast of form throughout in its combination of rounded and angled surfaces and catches light in such a fun way! It was hand carved and investment cast in silver. In order to have the hidden split chain, tiny balls will soldered onto the end of cable chain that sit in a hole on the inside of the arch.

Orchid Pendant

Processes: Hand carved in wax, Investment cast in silver and bronze, Soldering, Hand sanded and polished to a mirror finish

This project is a reinterpretation of an orchid, my mom’s favorite flower. Two striking aspects of orchids that I hoped to encapsulate are their voluminous form and vibrant color combinations. To achieve both of these, the piece was hand carved and cast in two parts, which allows for the use of mixed metals and also enables the interplay of the overlapping smooth sweeping curves that would have been hard to carve out of one piece. The two pieces are joined together with silver wire that was soldered through holes in both the two halves and later reshaped into a delicate pistil. In order to integrate the chain seamlessly, two hidden holes were incorporated into the silver piece where the chain attaches via soldered jump rings.