New custom T bar pendant

I love it when people buy my stuff (seriously, the validation of someone actually wanting to own something that I made really never gets old— thank you so much to all the people out there that own a little piece of my creativity!). But, as I’ve said before, I like to do custom work too. I had a recent order that sort of combined both — a piece that I designed as part of my ongoing obsession with all things immunity, but in a bespoke combination!

Here it is: my sterling silver T bar pendant on a string of beautiful garnet beads with garnet needled felt, with a special flower motif.

I love a good story!

I love doing custom work with a good story behind it. It’s indescribable the joy I can get from helping someone realize a vision (even one they didn’t have), while salvaging sentimental bits. The client for this project came in with a broken engagement ring, that had been sitting in a drawer for many years (it had cracked down the sizing join). She decided it was high time to have it re-done. She also had a number of different rings from her parents and grandparents, including a number of other diamonds, in addition to the lovely trillion garnet in the original ring. After some back and forth, we settled on a spectacular statement ring, incorporating all the diamonds and the trillion garnet, as well as bits of gold from all the rings that were very sentimental for her (including the original engagement ring!). The rest of the gold was refined from broken bits that she had rolling around her jewellery box.

All the rings that contributed old gold to the new ring! It was a bit of a mishmash of different karat weights!

We settled eventually on a design of a Faerie Leaf Crown, of oak and ivy leaves— this totally suits the client’s pagan sensibitilites!

Once the carving was done, I cast the ring in two pieces - the base ring and the crown.

Here they are, fresh out of the casting flask!

Then it was just clean up, joining the two, and getting the stones set. The final ring was amazing, and the client loved it!

Here it is on her finger :)

Here’s a closer view, there are some small diamonds nestled into the leaves at the sides!

Got stuff rolling around the bottom of your jewellery box that you can’t part with, but wish you wanted to wear more? Send me an email and let’s talk about what can be done! this ring was almost entirely paid for with the sale of old metal that the client had hanging around.

Surface finishes- a short guide

Everyone knows the obvious way to finish stirling silver— that awesome high mirror shine polish. I do alot of this, but it’s not my favourite way of finishing. Here are some other ways that I like to finish my silver jewellery.

Mirror Polish on the Stem Cell pendant

I love the high polish on these pieces, particularly with the felt in the “nuclei” of the “cells”

OXIDATION: This is the process of blackening the surface of the silver, this is really a process where you take the oxidation (or tarnishing, as most people would think it!) of the surface to completion. I love this treatment, I like the blackened look. However, it also is great to highlight texture on silver, as you can blacken the metal, and then partially repolish the surface. This is a common technique. I use a special solution, but actually, you can do it with eggs and a sealed container (because there is sulfur in eggs, and this causes tarnish!). The only drawback is that it is not a permanent finish, and on areas that it contacts skin, or rubs against other surfaces, it will eventually wear. Also, in very humid environments, and depending on your skin chemistry, it can wear faster or slower. The good news is, that it’s fairly easy to renew the finish! And I seal the surface of my pieces, which also helps to prolong the life of the patina.

Oxidation and the M pendant

I love the contrast between the dark silver surface and the teal felt. The darkened surface really helps the colour of the felt pop!

MATTE: Not everyone likes such a high shine on their jewellery, and it can make it hard to discern detail in alot of pieces. One option is to go for a natural silver finish, that is matte. Here, the piece is finished to the same high quality as to achieve a mirror polish, but then I rub it with very fine sand paper, to take the shine off again. I like to use this alot. It gives a nice soft silver sheen to the surface, and really allows the design to shine.

Matte finish on my spillage ring

If you look closely, you can see the difference between the shine on the inside surface of the ring, and the matte finish of the surface of the ring.

SAND BLASTING: This is a kind of matte finish, but adds an additional appearance of texture. The piece is finished to a high polish, and then a special machine with glass or stone (our machine uses ruby!) particles is used to bombard the surface of the metal, cutting into the surface, and giving it the characteristic texture.

Sandblasting on RBC half hoop earrings

Sandblasting gives an almost sparkle to the surface of these earrings, giving them a different look to many other pieces.

I love being able to finish things in different ways, it helps bring an additional dimension to jewellery. How about you? What’s your favourite finish?

Visit Dundas, see one of my pieces in person!

I’m so excited to share with you that one of my pieces will be on view at the Carnegie Gallery in Dundas in October!

You might remember my “Spillage” ring that I shared a while ago. I like to apply for juried exhibitions, especially other places. I’m always eager to share my work, and it’s always an honour to me to be accepted. The Carnegie Gallery only does an open juried exhibition once every two years, and this year, I put forward two pieces, and they accepted my “Spillage” ring for this year’s exhibition. Yay!

The exhibition runs from October 6th - November 5th 2023. The opening reception is October 6th, hope to see you there, and keep your fingers crossed that I win an award !

Toronto Outdoor Art Fair 60 years

It’s certainly been an interesting time of late. I was just sort of getting my jewellery practice off the ground, and the pandemic hit. I had some big plans for shows and development in 2020 that, well, mostly didn’t happen. Certainly, even in 2021, alot of the shows are not really occurring, although alot of virtual events have popped up. I haven’t been participating in them, but I did apply to the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, which is a juried show.

You may or may not know about these things, but as a relatively junior goldsmith (in terms of length of career so far!), it’s a pretty big deal for me to get into a juried show.  Honestly, I think even when I’m old and grey(er), I’ll still get a big charge out of it, that’s just kind of the way I am!

Me, looking excited, you just can’t tell, because I’m wearing a mask :). Actually, it’s from a while ago, as I found out in April, but I was very excited the day I found out!

What’s a juried show? you say.  Well, a juried show means that the show/sale/exhibition is curated, and there is a competitive process involved in being accepted to participate.  You have to tell them who you are and what you’re about, you need to submit professional looking images of your work and say what you will be exhibiting/selling.  Then a panel of people looks at all the applicants and judges you (eek!). I find it a bit nerve wracking, even though it’s not (usually) an in-person process.  You just have to wait for the answer about whether you’ve been accepted or not to eventually pop up in your email. (To be honest, this is shorter than in science—I’ve written research grants that take up to a year to get an answer about, art/craft shows are usually a couple or a few months—thankfully for my finger nails!!)

The show takes place July 2nd-11th, with lots of great programming. And…..all the artists profiles are up now, so you can browse already, you just can’t buy until the show goes live! I’m pretty happy with my profile- you can see it here. I am featuring a couple of things that you can see on my shop page, but it does mostly have new work, or work that you might not have see before, so I think it’s worth checking out!

I hope you’ll join us for this legacy event! Engage with artists, browse curated collections, enjoy art talks, studio tours, and buy art from 400+ juried artists at TOAF.ca

I will be doing some special videos and social media during the show, so I hope that you will check out my instagram and facebook pages! Drop me a line if there is anything you’d specifically like to know about!

Hope to hear and/or see you soon! Stay safe!

-Robin

Construction of a New Piece

As an independent goldsmith, I make a fair number of pieces that are small batch productions, so, while they are all unique in their own way, they’re still of a similar design, and generally use similar methods.  Part of my practice, to keep exercising my creative muscles is to challenge myself to make larger pieces on a semi-regular basis.  Last year, I made this piece:

Oxidised sterling silver, 10k yellow gold, blue topaz and sapphire necklace with roller printed elements and two-tone blue needled felt. This necklace is very kinetic, and hangs about 19" long.

If you’re familiar with some of my work, you’ll see that it incorporates a lot of different elements from other pieces that I’ve made, but puts them together in a new and more elaborate way, incorporating some gold and more precious gems than I might normally use.  (If you're interested in more information about why I use these elements, you can read a bit more here.)

This year, I set myself a similar goal: to make a larger, statement piece, that incorporates a lot of elements that I normally use, in a larger format, and incorporating or extending my skills at the same time.  This piece presented some challenges for me, in terms of the physical construction, because I couldn’t use a lot of my normal techniques to create the individual pieces.  This made it a lot of fun (I like practical problem solving/troubleshooting), but also rather frustrating at times. 

Some pictures of the necklace in process

starting to put the elements together

One down, one that needs alot of laser welding to get it together!

Just the finishing to go!

This necklace is part of my sci/art collections, and is entitled Invaders/Defenders. Since it is more specifically an art jewellery piece, the design is associated with different symbolism for me.  The piece has two different finishes.  The oxidised/dark element represents the infectious invaders, with the mostly oval cabochon sapphires being reminiscent of a bacterial shape, and the random placement showing some of the disorder that happens in the infection process.  In contrast, the matte silver/light element represents the immune cells that defend against infection and disease, with the incorporation of texture and irregular cutouts. The more organic nature of the circular shape of the two larger elements reflect the cellular/tissue environment where these biological entities interact, and the two elements are united in a continuous loop with a steel cable, as the different sides of this process are irrevocably linked in biology.

The final piece and an impression of the scale. The two main elements are made of sterling silver, with sapphire cabochons, roller printed elements, seed freshwater pearl beads, and deep blue needled felt.

I’m really pleased with the overall effect of the piece, what do you think?  Would you be interested in some smaller pieces in a similar style of one of the elements, perhaps as a brooch or a pendant?

You can contact me here to start a dialogue about this piece, and commission a new work.  I look forward to your comments.

Have a great Sunday!

-Robin