Pod Elements Turning into Jewellery

A While back, I made quite a few elements of Gooseberry Pods in copper and I started making them into finished pieces to add to my Btech Collection. The below Image is a brooch that was inspired by a pencil drawing that I made a while back. I ordered a batch of 10mm pearls to substitute as the gooseberries inside the open pods. I also blackened the Copper pods as in the drawing I made in May.

Brooch in Sterling silver, Copper and a Freshwater Pearl. 

Inspiration Drawing

Process Work

Personal Meaning of PlatAfrica 2019 Piece

On a personal level, I decided to use the Gooseberry as my source of inspiration because over the past few weeks, gooseberry pods have become a sort of metaphor of my thoughts and feelings. I have noticed that I tend to hide my emotions away in fear of peoples' reactions or hurting their feelings. I have started working on this problem by making a point of sharing my inner feelings and thoughts to others. Sometimes it helps to share a good thought and it is an important skill to have in personal relationships.

On my final design, I have placed three platinum pods ascending from small to large, with the large one that is open exposing a magnificent pearl and a gold plated inside. The three closed pods represent my mind or my thoughts that are concealed to the world and the three different sized pods represent me as a person (growing). The large pod containing the pearl represent the expression of my emotions, feelings or thoughts. When viewing one of my previous posts, titled Holiday Jewellery,  I give a meaning to the use of pearls:"The pearl represents suffering, as a pearl is grown inside an oyster’s flesh. It starts off as a piece of sand or debris that the oyster coats in nacre to smooth out the grain’s sharp and painful edges."  The pod exposing the pearl represents my release of suffering or internal debate experienced when emotions or feelings are kept inside. The gold plating brings with a sense of warmth , joy or relief that is experienced when the internal turmoil is expelled. 

holiday Jewellery

Grace

Grace is a prophetic enamelled bracelet that I designed and made to be sent away to England. This piece proved to be a great challenge as it ended up taking much longer as anticipated due to the unplanned problems and failures, but in the end it turned out to be a beautiful jewellery piece that taught me quite a few life lessons.

The customer requested an enamelled bracelet resembling ‘God’s Grace’. I started off designing this bracelet in July of 2018 and purchased an array of enamel colours ranging from petal pink, orchid, pastel blue, Atlantic blue and fox glove purple that would represent ‘Grace’ here are the colours and their explanations:

Pink (a mix of white and red): Red representing the flesh, the healing blood of Jesus and redemption and white representing purity and righteousness. Pink signifies the right relationship with God and that our sins can be washed away with the blood of Jesus.

Blue: the healing power of God and the word of God.

Purple: (a mix of red and blue) purple also represents royalty and kingship and it is the colour that points to the messiah, which is Jesus. By accepting Jesus into our lives, RED: our sins will be washed away, and BLUE: we must follow the word of God.

Use of Pearls:

The pearl represents suffering, as a pearl is grown inside an oyster’s flesh. It starts off as a piece of sand or debris that the oyster coats in nacre to smooth out the grain’s sharp and painful edges. This parable can be used to describe God’s plan for our lives. Sometimes we go through difficult and painful periods of our lives that we may not understand but God uses these events to shape us and smooth us out into something beautiful.

The use of five enamelled elements:

The number 5 represents God’s Grace; this can be seen in the creation of human beings as we have five fingers, five toes, five senses

Manufacturing process:

I designed a bracelet that consisted of five enamelled discs that had decorative windows in which enamel was placed.

In my first attempt, I created five copper discs that I domed and five silver discs that I domed and pierced out. I fused the copper and silver domes using a see-through enamel that was baked on using a torch. I went on to add enamel in the windows and this is where I encountered my first problem. All of my enamelled domes cracked. After doing some extensive research I concluded that I had to have a backing enamel to prevent cracks.

My second attempt, I prepped five more copper and silver domes. This time I added some scrap enamel to the backs of the copper domes and Kiln fired them. I then added clear flux on the surfaces to fuse the silver onto the copper. I then filled up the windows with coloured enamel and baked them in the kiln at 800 degrees. When I removed the enamels, all the colours had turned dull yellow and brown. The second problem.

My third attempt went similar to the second but instead of adding all the colours at once I added them each individually, I also lowered my kiln temperature, but the results came out the same. I completely gave up on enamelling at this point of time. There is something wrong with my kiln’s thermostat and I will have to get temperature cones the next time I use my kiln to get the correct temperature.

In my fourth final attempt, I scrapped the kiln idea and went back to torch firing where I had more control over the temperature. I altered my silver disc design so that there were more windows to offer more support when cooling down so that there will be less cracking. This solution worked the best and I only had cracking on one of my discs which I refired and the crack went away.

I assembled the bracelet linking the enamelled domes with pearls and it ended up looking gorgeous!

I learned that one cannot take the easy way out because it actually wastes more time in the end. Always do the right thing even though it involves the most effort as it will save you time and frustration. Never give up. Always persevere as in the end there will always be a solution.