Incensed
Silver seashell incense holder and a fallen sakura petal ring prototype
I’m a bit on the nose with the post title this week, but being creative or making art of any kind feels like a great release when stressed, or, incensed. And this has been quite the busy week!
I finished a seashell incense holder that I will gift to a friend (well, it’s meant as an incense holder but my friend is a regular smoker so I think it will more likely make for a chic cigarette holder).
The shell is molded from a combination of a natural shell I picked up long ago on a beach and some creative reshaping I did with wax. In some ways, a challenging aspect of this piece is deciding what to leave “imperfect”. Natural shells have grooves, scratches, and asymmetries that I had to decide whether to keep or remove.
The piece is sterling silver and has a nice weight to it in the hand. I may have to make another to keep for myself!
Current projects
If you recall, last week I discussed wanting to explore ways to reflect unexpected beauty and imperfection through jewelry. I tried the concept initially as a clover which didn’t quite feel interesting enough, and this week I revisited a theme I touched on last spring: the beauty of a fallen sakura petal. I fabricated a version in silver that resonates with me; in a final version, the fallen petal made using mitsuro (traditional Japanese wax) would be in yellow gold while the rest remains platinum or silver.
The prototype ring in silver feels a bit large, so I’m remaking a more delicate version and taking a few learnings from the first time around to make the flower cleaner.
I’m gradually gaining a bit more confidence with fabricating pieces, so it’s fun trying to make pieces almost entirely directly in metal (the mitsuro portion is the only part originally made in wax).
I persevered through a real test of my patience and soldering ability to progress my sapphire flower ring. At first, I accidentally secured the stone seat a bit off-center in the flower, which ended up being a good experience to understand how to recover/fix a mistake (it involved a lot of heat and a very quick reaction from my Sensei to melt the solder and snatch the basket seat away before it all completely melted!). All that’s left is a final polish and refinement of the stone setting. I want my next project at school to make a very classic engagement ring-looking setting as that is probably a good skill to have!