Here are some of my jewelry creations. I use the lost wax casting technique.

LOST WAX CASTING

First, a bit about the lost wax casting process. We use wax to make the exact model of what we

want the piece of jewelry to look like (minus any stones – although CZs can be cast with the

wax, at a risk). The wax cast is going to be heated so that it melts away. Thus every piece we

make in this way is unique. But how do we get the mold of the wax? The wax model is put in a

cylinder that is higher and wider than it is, by at least ½” in every direction. There is a rubber

bottom put on one end of the cylinder. Then the cylinder is filled with investment, which looks a

lot like plaster. When the whole cylinder is heated up, the wax melts out and there is an empty

shape that is in the exact negative form of the model.

But how do we get the molten metal to get into that empty shape? We attach sprues to the

model.

This is a picture of Lisa attaching sprues to a model. The model

is in blue wax and the sprues are the red wax.

So the melted metal can flow through the pipelines that have been left by the sprues into the

empty space.

After hours heating in the kiln, the cylinders are ready for the casting process.

So we take some metal to melt. Here there is a round piece of some gold left

over from a previous project and some grains of new gold.

The metal is put in the crucible (that is where the flame is

aimed). The crucible has been preheated before the metal goes in. The method of casting you

see here uses centrifugal force with a broken arm.

Arlene and Emma heating the metal.

Arlene and Lisa heating the metal.

When the metal has completely melted into a beautiful little shimmering blob, it’s time to cast

it. I love the look of molten metal! The cylinder is taken out of the kiln and put into the casting

mechanism. The heated metal will be forced into the empty space through the spruce pipes by

centrifugal force as it swings around the crucible.

Arlene taking a cylinder out of the kiln.

Then we wait a while for the cylinder to cool down. When it is cooler, but not cold, it is

immersed in water to cool off and for some of the investment to disintegrate.

Nancy quenches a piece – you can see steam coming up off the

hot cylinder. Note the dish detergent in the background. Best way to clean jewelry – with a

toothbrush and dish detergent!

Investment (the white stuff) dissolves into the water and we start

to see the bottom of the piece of jewelry! You never know how it will turn out. This is good for

people who love surprises!

This is what a piece looks like when the investment has been

cleaned off of it. There is still a lot of work to get those sprues off and clean and polish the

piece! See the picture of the bow ring below for an idea of what the finished version of this

looks like.

You can also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost-wax_casting for more details and for some

historical perspective.

INSPIRATION

Here are some things that inspire my work.

Huge source of inspiration – from the Lalique collection

at the Gulbenkian museum in Lisbon. Every piece a joy to behold! I am inspired by the shaping

of the stones, and especially by the way that the metal and the stones have equal voices in each

piece and work so very well together. A huge amount of thought went into each piece and the

pieces are inspired by nature.

Also at the Gulbenkian, this water fountain

by Lalique. Before it was enclosed in glass, it sat in an area where one walked up to it thinking

you could get a drink of water. The crystal plays the role of water to the metal’s role of lily

pads.

Inspiration from the Paula Crevoshay show a while ago at the Carnegie.

Metalwork on a door that opens onto a canal in Venice.

Lucifer

Vir Honestus pink tourmaline and gold butterfly rings – each wing is a separate ring.

Jewelry in the window of a jewelry shop in South Africa. They

do set uncut diamonds in jewelry (more about these stones later!)

My rings

I don’t wear necklaces, only sometimes wear broches, so I work on rings and occasionally.

SILVER

My earlier work was in silver and these days if a stones says “put me in silver”, I comply.

A huge flower ring. See below for how big it is on the hand.

This is something for a special occasion, not for typing on a keyboard!

That’s a lot of silver!

In a similar vein, a calla lily.

And on my hand.

After that, I started making things I could really wear, finer, lighter, and slowly learned how to

do a better finish on them.

Early rings – silver – another take on a calla lily

One in silver and one in gold.

This is a Mexican fire opal in matrix that I bought at the

Carnegie Gem Show – wish they still held them! I tried many settings, some flamboyant and

some tame. But the problem came down to the color. The opal color did not work well with gold

and the matrix color did not work well with silver. Emma came up with the solution – liver of

sulphur over silver to darken it! I still have a few lines in the finish to remind me that there is

silver under there, but this color and setting work well – looks like fire and metal!

This is an early piece. Turquoise set in silver.

Debbie gave me this piece of Afghani lapis that she cabbed herself,

which makes it very special to me. Set in silver. Very deep blue with practically no matrix

running through it.

Cute little finger ring with a turquoise cabochon I rescued from

another ring. Set in silver.

Charoite ring set in silver. Modern setting, a very long ring, but

pretty comfortable. Circa 2014

This is a fun little ring with a design of vines and berries all around

This rough looking ring is very special. For some reason, when it came

out of casting there were no sprues on it! Making it take hours less to clean up! I tried to

imitate the conditions in making the ring, but have not again managed to make a sprueless

ring!

Wax comes in a lot of forms. One form is wax wires. This ring results

from braiding the wax wires (which try to break as you do it!)

Two silver rings. On the left is a labradorite – I found the

stone in a ring in a shop in Paris and took it out of the setting. This setting was eventually

melted down in a quest for something better. On the right is a flat pearl that goes really well in

this setting – the setting is shinier than it looks in the picture. Circa 2014

Gold rings

I work in yellow gold, but also mix up my own colors of gold (very “in” at the moment). I make

a lighter rose gold than seen commercially, with less copper in it. I also have something I call

peach gold where there is just a whisper of copper in it. I melt down old jewelry to do this.

Let’s start with just gold, no stones. Many of my only-gold pieces have not survived (been

melted down to make something else).

This is a bow ring. You saw before how it looked when it

came out of casting in my example of a ring with sprues still on it. I wanted a bow ring. But

bows seem to be notoriously hard to make. This and two other tries were melted down.

Nice leaf ring in rose gold, lots of veins in the leaf. I wore

this a lot, but it was eventually melted.

This is an earlier version of the leaf ring above. Nice, but

this was melted as well.

Stacking several little finger rings with the one that is a take on

a calla lily at the top.

Now let’s look at druzy. Druzy is found in the center of geodes. It is usually white or off-white

(although there are some examples below of naturally occurring druzy in other colors). When

you see a very vivid color, it has had a coating baked on.

A vivid blue druzy set in yellow gold. Not its natural color.

This is an example of another nicely colored druzy. Brought back

from Tucson by Nancy in either 2011 or 2012. Set in gold.

Little druzy for a little finger ring. I made one in sliver and one in gold

and they work well for stacking.

Here that little druzy is stacked with two simple little rings.

Black garnet druzy brought back from Tucson by Nancy circa 2013.

Big crystals. Photo does not do justice to the sparkly nature of the stone. Just naturally lent

itself to rose gold. The twisted cord type setting just came naturally.

This beautiful and unusual druzy was brought back from Tucson by

Nancy circa 2015. Looking at the back of the stone, I believe this is chalcedony. I put little balls

in the peach gold setting to imitate the little balls in the druzy. I also added a few holes to give

it negative space that plays against the positive space of the balls. High polish around the top

of the bezel.

This is another druzy that Nancy found in Tucson circa 2014. I love

this ring! It just says summer to me. The bezel is a series of wrappings. Set in yellow gold.

Now some tourmaline. I love tourmaline! There is huge variety in its beautiful colors,

sometimes even within one stone, as with the watermelon tourmalines we will see below!

Cabochons often have inclusions that tell the story of their sojourn within the earth. Sometimes

the inclusions sparkle!

Let’s start with a watermelon tourmaline set in yellow gold.

This stone had several previous settings before it came to nest in this one. The back is carved

out so that light can come through the stone.

Another watermelon tourmaline, this one is a rare opalized

stone and is set in yellow gold.

This is a blue (indicolite) tourmaline from Namibia that I bought

when in Cape Town South Africa. Looks less blue due to the gold setting. It is a perfectly

transparent stone – what you see is the pattern I put in the gold setting. Indicolite is very rare.

This was a great souvenir!

This little guy was in a “lot” of seven or eight stones I bought and

is a very 30’s-ish style. Little finger ring, yellow gold, simple setting.

Another great carved tourmaline that came in that same lot. In yellow

gold. The band is made to look like the outside of a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

Did I really say how much I love tourmaline? This is the third in that

tourmaline lot, set in yellow gold. Here there are three shades of green from light to dark and

there is a lot of sparkle from the inclusions.

There is a wonderful exhibit of

tourmaline stones that is part of the permanent collection in the Carnegie Museum of

Pittsburgh. I could look at these stones for hours!

Now let’s look at opals. They take many forms and colors. There was a very recent (end of last

decade) new discovery of opals in Ethiopia. They are often called Ethiopian hydrophane opals

since the stones contain so much water.

This Ehiopian hydrophane opal came to me in its natural matrix.

It is set in yellow gold. Because of its irregular shape, it is hard to set. This big clunky setting

was the first try and ended up being melted down.

This is the present setting for the above stone. The sides and the

central prong hold the stone in.

This is another Ethiopian opal that has been cabbed and carved. For this

little finger ring, I left the rose gold exactly as it came out of the cast. It has a wonderful shine

that way!

Other stones

Some of these are pretty common, like the beautiful citrine and others are a lot more exotic,

like the Colombian trapiche emerald.

Ah the carved citrine!

Have you noticed that I like carved stones? I rescued this one from a very ugly setting. But the

first setting on the left was melted due to it being too heavy and always turning on my finger.

Second attempt to get the citrine into a good setting on the right – still too heavy – also was

melted.

Here is the present version – the stone is not overpowered by the metal,

there is a little leaf that embraces the stone in the upper left.

Three goodies. On the left is a

star black stone set in gold. In the center is a dendritic quartz set in the gold from my high

school ring. On the right is a larimar cabochon brought back from Tucson by Nancy circa 2014

and set in gold – a very summery ring.

AH! These are uncut

diamonds set in rose gold. They have a long story. At Interspeech in Antwerp I started my

search for uncut diamonds. The diamond sellers literally laughed me out of their shops. I got

some from Debbie and proceeded to put them in a very clunky and unflattering setting. That

was melted down. I tried another setting that you can see below. The setting above is their

present home. I like it very much. It’s comfortable to wear and the irregular nature of the

setting goes well with the stones. On the left is the wax model.

This earlier version of the ring was pretty, but just too uncomfortable

to wear.

This is my wavy ring. Amethyst cabochon on the left and a

dyed Ethiopian opal on the right. Yellow gold. Circa 2015

Rhodochrosite is another fascinating stone. This is a rare formation of

it that looks like the rings on a tree. This is the fifth setting I made for it and this one is simple

and lets the stone stand out. Rose gold.

Ah! This is a Colombian trapiche emerald. Set in gold from

Uncle Larry’s high school ring, it is made to look like an evil eye ring. Due to the crystal

composition of emeralds, they can in rare cases be found in this formation of six emeralds tied

to one central one.

Another carved stone. This is a tanzanite. Two little flowers embrace it

at the lower left.

We rarely see turquoise set in gold. But the golden color matrix in this

stone just asked me for gold. A little finger ring.