One of the greatest pleasures I have as a result of being with Dana (apart from Dana herself) is that I have been introduced to, and in some cases grown close(ish) to some very skilled and fascinating people in the world of Art Jewelry.

A couple of those people are Cynthia Toops and Dan Adams.  Cynthia works in a variety of media but is perhaps best know for her work with Polymer Clay.  Her micromosaics are both beautiful and mind-boggling in their construction.  Dan on the other hand creates beautiful glass beads that he sells individually or in necklaces created collaboratively with Cynthia’s work.  Take a look for yourself at CDBeads.

Anyway, several months ago, Dan and Cynthia dropped by Dana’s studio when I happened to be there and they mentioned a collaborative exhibition they were trying to put together.  They called it simply “3×2” and they wanted to tie it in with the International Society of Glass Beadmakers 2012 conference to be held in Bellevue Washington in July.

The idea was to jury a selection of beads from the membership of the International Society of Glass Beadmakers (ISGB) and then have members of the Seattle Metals Guild make jewelry with them.  More specifically, The Bead Artists would each create 3 similar beads of there own design and those beads would be turned over to a Metalsmith be turned into similar rings, brooches or a Pendants/Necklaces.

I blurted out at the time that I would like to be involved and to my surprise, they said simply “OK.  That’d be great!”.  Sometime in April I think it was, an online gallery of images was sent around that included all the beads that had been accepted.  I put in a request to be paired with my 3 favorite beadmakers and was pleased to be paired with Amy Waldman-Smith.   Some time in May, I got the beads and started to noodle on what I wanted to do with them.

I wanted the bead to be front and center but I wanted my project contribution to hold it’s own.  I wanted to use a technique that might allow me to echo some of the design elements of the bead while at the same time, not look anything like the bead at all.  Chasing and Repousse’ seemed like an ideal solution.  The other big choice was how to set the bead.  I wanted it to be clear that this was a bead.  Not a cabachon or that sort of thing.  So, I had to set the bead so it could spin.  Once I came to those conclusions, the overall form of the brooch just sort of fell into place.    I would sink the main dome of the piece to about half the diameter of the bead and then chase a recess almost as deep from the front for the bead.  Then I’d chase the design into the part that had become the frame of the bead, solder on some pegs to hold the bead axle and the pin back, install said bead and pin back and that would be that.

The first project progressed like that and I was so pleased with the results that I couldn’t wait to work on, and make improvements to the 2nd and third.  When I got to the 3rd brooch, I decided I’d go all out and do it in Sterling Silver instead of copper.  It was just a wild hair (or is it hare) that made me add gold foil to the petals of the flower using a technique called Kum Boo.