Make a statement-- How I helped to bring vision to reality in earring form
I love doing custom pieces. It can be so rewarding bringing something new to life in collaboration with a client. I recently finished a spectacular pair of earrings. Some pieces are quick, and some are not so quick. These were the latter. This story starts about six months ago….. A lovely lady wandered into the studio with a fist full of stones removed from jewellery and a bunch of other jewellery that still needed to have the stones taken out of, and some quick sketches on a piece of paper. She had a clarity of vision that was spectacular! I did some sketches, and then we had a meeting. One of the first things she said to me was “I have big hair, I need big earrings”. Well, she got her wish!
The brief was for broken and run down wheels, incorporating as many stones as possible. These guys are massive- about 3.5 inches long! With some pretty big stones. The challenge was to incorporate lots of stones, but still keep them wearable. In the end, I suggested extending the wheels a bit, to incorporate a cluster of stones on a post, this allowed me to make them so that the stick and wheel units could be taken off the clusters, making the earrings more versatile. So, the client can wear the clusters as much as desired (because they’re a reasonable weight), and put on the dangling wheel on special occasions when she really wants that wow! factor.
Next, I prepped the waxes, and cast them (you can see them here with the stones placed. Each setting was done, and then I played a bit with the wax weight to try and keep the overall weight down. I didn’t worry so much about the finishing at this point, as I knew that I was going to have to modify them alot in the metal.
The stick units, ready for setting with their stones! I added posts and omega clips, as well as jump rings to the different units, and ate away at the metal to give it a distressed or aged look. Then it was time to have the stones set! Once that was done, I did some more work on eating away at the metal, and the oxidised them to give them an aged look. And voila! Finished earrings.
Mission Accomplished! These were so much fun to make, and the client was delighted with them. Diamonds and garnets and sapphires and topaz, oh my!
Do you have jewellery lurking in your box that you used to love, but don’t anymore? I can help you love it again! Drop me a line, let’s have a conversation.