FEATURE STORY

14K gold, jasper, and rhodolite garnet brooch by Judy Silver (above)

This is one of the most frequently asked questions I hear when showing my jewelry. Occasionally I can answer this question, but more often, I have to shrug my shoulders and admit that I really don't know, exactly. They just come, and after 30 years, they are still coming, for which I am profoundly grateful. But if the question is revised slightly - to “How do you design jewelry?” - that can be answered much more specifically. The same design source doesn't dictate the same design: Brooch by Cynthia Chuang (above) and Ray Tacey (click for image) show how differently artists approach the butterfly. Photo: Jerry Anthony Photography. There are a number of ways. Limiting factors, like a predetermined style, stone combination, or technique, make the process easier. Sometimes a client will see a previously sold piece and commission work along similar lines, or bring in some stones, with instructions to do whatever I think will best utilize them, or ask for pieces made to match an existing work, such as earrings for a neckpiece, or a ring to complement a pin. Starting from scratch is much harder. Luckily, inspiration is all around, if you open your mind to it. Over the years I have collected numerous items which have fascinated me for one reason or another: a wasp's nest which fell out of a tree in the yard; the innards of a doorbell; or oddly shaped or patterned seashells. Even for abstract, nonrepresentational styles of jewelry, these items are useful for inspiring shapes, colors, patterns, or textures. Also, I have been a stone junkie since the start of my jewelry career. Unusual and interesting gem materials always challenge the designer to devise a setting that is appropriate but different. Brooch by Ray Tacey. Photo courtesy of Four Winds Gallery. Line, shape, color, and texture are the primary elements, along with contrast, feeling/mood, balance, tension/static, symmetry/asymmetry, space/negative space, focal point, proportion, and function. Often I will have a student turn a picture sideways or upside down, so he or she is not distracted by the subject matter but can more easily analyze it and isolate the different elements of design. As far as how design elements should be used . . . hopefully in a creative manner, which means not just copying something, or someone, else. By understanding and using the elements of basic design, you can purposefully alter your original inspiration, or starting point, into a totally new creation. You may choose to emphasize one element over another. For example, forging will bring out line, but not color or texture. Reticulation or granulation will emphasize texture; gemstones or enamel will bring out color. Repousse is a good combination of shape, line and texture. The most overlooked element of design is negative space. This is really equal in importance to shape, or positive space, but unfortunately, it is often disregarded. Sara Sanford found a piece of wood with an intriguing shape and used it as a source for at least five different pieces (see Question 5). The necklace here is of sterling silver and agate. Photo: Sara M. Sanford. I really don't like the term “rules.” While I know that many rules are made to be broken, especially in art, I prefer to use basic guidelines, as a signpost or gentle prod in the appropriate direction. This implies, as I firmly believe is true, that there may be many different ways to solve a specific problem. To decide on the best of several good alternatives, you have to explore them all, or at least be aware of them. To create a dynamic piece, one with good flow that will cause the eye to move all over it, you would turn to an asymmetrical design, with much variation in line thickness, and which presents the unexpected. To design a static piece, you would use a symmetrical design, with sameness of line thickness, and use only expected elements. Your focal point, if you choose to have one, should be the strongest element, the one spot which draws the eye repeatedly, yet allows the eye to see the rest of the piece. One thing to remember is that balance does not equal symmetry. By its nature, symmetry does include a rigid balance, but asymmetrical designs can also have, and usually should have, visual balance. Judith Kaufman's lush combinations of gold, opal, and pearls evokes Art Nouveau style without aping it (see Question 6). Photo: Ralph Gabriner. Anything and everything! Have you ever found a pebble on the beach, an odd piece of wood, or an interesting chunk of lichen while walking in the woods, and thought, “Gee, I wish I could make a piece of jewelry out of this”? Even watching TV can be a design source. Diana Rigg, hostess of Mystery! on PBS, often wears intriguing-looking pins, but the camera rarely gets close enough to see them clearly. But a hint is enough - I just let my imagination fill in the details. One day while walking along a sidewalk, I stumbled over what turned out to be a small piece of wood. On closer inspection, it seemed interesting, so I tucked it away and promptly forgot about it. Several weeks later, when rummaging in the bottom of my purse, I found it again, and began to really study it. I decided to see if I could come up with at least five or six pieces of jewelry, using different techniques, but all obviously evolving from this one design source. From one small piece of wood, I designed two neckpieces, one lost wax cast and one of forged square wire; a repousse pin; a cast ring; and a small cast pendant. I still have the piece of wood, and who knows how many more designs may come of it? I've used that process, what I call a “design source challenge,” using other sources; Sometimes a new product will come on the market and inspire me. One of my favorite pieces was the result of a challenge to use square tubing, which I had just discovered was available commercially. In order to increase the available sizes of the tubing, I used a square wire drawplate. To complement the square tubing, I also set a smoky quartz faceted in a checkerboard cut. Although I conscientiously try to avoid whatever is fashionable at the moment, I did succumb to the seed bead craze several years ago and went through what I call my fringe period. Adding long tails of seed beads to a pin is a way to add color and movement and enlarge the scale without increasing either the weight or the cost. Echoing historic forms shouldn't preclude originality (see question 6). Cynthia Chuang combined Art Deco geometrics with natural forms to create ths grasshopper. Photo: Jerry Anthony Photography. I do - both historical and contemporary. Sometimes it will be the shape of the piece, a combination of gemstones, or a specific technique that inspires me. I have accumulated a large library over the last 30 years, and often thumb through various books and periodicals, just to see what will catch my eye. I enjoy learning about both historical and ethnic jewelry, but my own work is definitely contemporary. But I'll use another piece of jewelry as a starting point only. I take a very dim view of anyone copying another's work for profit. I'm not really afraid of other people copying my work; I do only one-of-a-kind pieces, which are so labor intensive that anyone foolish enough to copy me for commercial purposes is welcome to it. Besides, by the time he or she could market the copy, I will probably have moved on to something entirely different. Having been a teacher for so many years, I know that students always are influenced by their instructor's style, but usually move on to find their own style eventually. For a recent collection, Lisa and Scott Cylinder challenged themselves to continually reinterpret the theme of “Game Birds” for pieces such as Cradle Brooch (above) of silver, copper, agate, epoxy resin, and patina, and Pair Brooch (below). Photo: Jeffrey K. Brady Creativity, like any ability, benefits immeasurably from regular exercise. In my classes on designing jewelry, I use a number of exercises to help my students find a way to use most of their senses to come up with original designs. I'll bring a tape with short excerpts from several different kinds of music, from Medieval chant to modern jazz, then ask the students to close their eyes and just let the music conjure up an image. Or I'll bring a number of items, hidden away in separate paper sacks; the students put a hand in the sack to feel the item, then sketch whatever they think they are feeling. In these exercises, the sketches are a starting point to generate a final jewelry design. In order not to let the students think too much about a design (or agonize over it), they're limited to two minutes to produce their initial sketches. I also ask each student to come to class with magazines or books with lots of illustrations, from which I show them how to use virtually anything to inspire a design for jewelry. For one student, a photograph from Architectural Digest, of a modern house with a swimming pool, sparked a beautiful necklace inspired by the pattern of light and shade. Pair Brooch, by Lisa and Scott Cylinder, of 14K gold, silver, 18K bi-metal, copper, silver leaf and patina. Photo: Jeffrey K. Brady Class members also bring in fruits or vegetables, which we then slice in various ways to study the design. It's really amazing what you see when you slice a kiwi fruit or green pepper, especially if it is cut in a way you might not be used to. Even a banana sliced on the diagonal instead of straight across presents a distortion of a familiar pattern. I have always felt that Mother Nature is the ultimate designer. A perennial favorite in my classes is “Stump the Teacher” - students will give me an object in the room, or a picture from a magazine, as a starting point for me to design a piece of jewelry. Some of my favorites were a chair, the pattern in a student's shirt, and a photograph from a magazine of a baby's leg. Not all will be masterpieces, but it's always possible to produce a viable design, especially if you add enough pearls. (This became the running class joke, since I love working with pearls, and can add them to almost any design.) Both! Often I will try out a different combination of stones, crystals, or fossils, just putting them next to each other to see if they look good together. Sometimes the design comes from the gem materials themselves - the hexagonal shape of a ruby crystal, the cubic form of iron pyrite, or the lines and colors in picture jasper. I once used the linear pattern of a black-and-white banded agate to inspire the design of a pin by inlaying silver into ebony, replicating the lines in the agate. Other times, I'll see something that intrigues me, and consider how it could be used for jewelry design and perhaps enhanced by the appropriate use of gem materials. Ring by Stephen Greenstein. Photo: F. Jaulmes It is easy to get in a rut. In the early '80s, I found myself dissatisfied with my work. Until then, I had done mostly lost-wax casting, and there wasn't much of a challenge in it anymore. I felt I wanted to work on a slightly larger scale, making neckpieces and larger pins. Since a cast piece is inherently rather heavy, this was a problem. Try something drastic to jump-start your creativity. I set up a challenge for myself to design eight pendants: each would use a different major technique, have a different hand-made chain, use a crystal specimen or a fossil in addition to cabochon and/or faceted stones, and each would incorporate pearls. I felt that this would allow me to explore some techniques I had not used since college and even to try some new ones. This is something worth remembering - there are always new techniques to try, and discovering a new process may send your work off in an entirely different direction. Two of the pendants were cast, but I also used reticulation, cuttlebone casting, forging, granulation, enameling, and repousse. One of the cast pendants came from a demonstration I had done. Usually I just toss out the waxes I have been demonstrating with, since they're done very quickly, just to illustrate process rather than design. But this one was rather interesting, so I kept it. (Serendipity at work!) Stephen Greenstein creates pieces where the cuts of the stoens are echoed in the linear shapes in the metalwork and design (see Question 8). Photo: F. Jaulmes Several of the pieces used contrast in one way or another. In one pendant I combined the texture unique to cuttlebone casting with the highly polished, smooth lines of forging. One combined the roughness of reticulated silver with the sharp edges of rectangular and square wire. In another, non-traditional granulation (not geometric, and with various sized granules) was used in a very geometric setting, for a contrast of shape as well as texture. But in two of the pendants, there was little contrast of texture. One, a highly polished repousse pendant with a forged neckpiece, used a crystal cluster of grossular garnet to lend both texture and color; the other was entirely done using a build-up technique with a wax pen, including all the chain links and the clasp. Color also played an important part in the design process. One of the pendants was monochromatic, or all similar colors. I used a grey drusy quartz formation known as a “quartz concho” or “chalcedony rose” along with white moonstones, a black and white banded agate, and white, black, and grey pearls. Another piece used transparent enamel on fine silver sheet, the colors taken from the stones used, ranging from the purple of amethyst to the yellow of the rutile in a rutilated quartz sphere. The only rule of chain design is that the chain work with, rather than distract from, the pendant. Ths Tahitian pearl pendant suspended from a woven chain of 18K gld comes from the French company Rambaud s.a. Chains certainly should be appropriate for the overall design of the pendant; if they aren't, they'll work against the design and simply be a distraction. For the pendants that I mentioned in the previous question, three of the chains were variations on the same theme: long, straight sections of wire, either round, square, or rectangular (depending on the shapes used in the pendant), joined by jump rings on each end. One chain was made of square wire oval links joined by round wire jump rings; another was made of cast links done with a wax pen, and even the joining links as well as the clasp were cast. I made a crocheted fine silver wire chain for the granulation piece. I fussed over the last pendant for a long time because it was the most complicated; it combined an amethyst crystal, enamel, a rutilated quartz sphere, faceted and cabochon amethysts, and cabochon moonstones. Every chain design I considered seemed to detract from the complex relationships between the design and the gems. I finally chose a simple fiber cord, with a hand-made silver clasp. This presented a practical problem: how to detach the cord when the pendant needed cleaning, since the cord could not stand up to the rigorous cleaning methods necessary for metal. So I added bullet-shaped amethysts, sideways, to each side of the pendant near the top, protruding on a short length of square wire. Then, I soldered two short pieces of fine silver tubing side-by-side, and used this as a slider for the loop of cord which was then looped over the amethyst on each side. This allowed the cord to be removed easily when cleaning the pendant. Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. A minimalistic approach can result in striking designs. Donalid Freidlich contrasts textures and simple shapes to great effect in his brooch of 22K gold, niobium, sterling silver and glass. Photo: David Trawick. This is a hard question, as any artist will tell you. A lot has to do with the basic elements of design, knowing what they are and how to use them. I had art training in high school and college, but I've found that most people use basic design elements instinctively. They may not know the formal terms, but design is all around us. From cars to appliances to furniture to clothing to food packaging design to the Lapidary Journal you are now reading, we are bombarded with design, for good or ill, practically every waking moment. Much of knowing when a design is right is just being aware of how it feels. Not the most practical advice, but true. The real answer to the question is . . . everywhere! All you have to do is keep your eyes and your mind open. Sara M. Sanford is a professional jeweler and founding member and past president of the Creative Metal Arts Guild in Portland, OR.

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