07.21.2025 Hot Fun in the Summertime, redux

How did we get halfway through the year?
Two-thirds of the way through July? 
Almost all the way through the ACC summer semester?

Since returning home from our wonderful trip to San Francisco, I've been spending my Tuesdays and Thursdays in the jewelry studio learning advanced enameling techniques from my friend and teacher, De Pastel.

It's been awhile since I worked with enamels - almost six years - but it didn't take me long to get back up to speed.

Back in the before times, I took a wonderful class with Ricky Frank.  That was the last time I'd worked with enamel, so it seemed like a good idea to start with some refresher projects before diving into the more complicated stuff.

I did some color tests and made a couple of simple cloisonné pieces as a way to become familiar with tools and the kiln, and pretty soon I felt comfortable with the process.

After cloisonné, we moved on to creating a plique-à-jour piece. 

The phrase is French and means "to let in light" - which is exactly what these pieces do.  The technique is similar to cloisonné, in that you build a design with wire, but instead of firing the enamel on to metal (copper or silver), you suspend the vitreous enamel in the frame and place it in the kiln - over and over - until each cell in the piece is full.  The result is a stained glass miniature.

I decided to use one of my favorite motifs - a hamsa.

It's not just a matter of fabricating the structure for the pendant; because it is going to be fired multiple times, it's necessary to make sure that any impurities in the metal eliminated before the enamel is added.  

This process - called depletion gilding - brings the pure metal (in this case, silver) to the surface.  The metal is heated and cleaned repeatedly until it comes out of the kiln with no dark spots at the solder joints.

Once this process is complete (it took me about 8 passes through the kiln), you start to add color.

Using a very small brush, wet enamel is placed in the wire cells where surface tension holds it in place.  This is done on a firing trivet - with no support or backing behind the piece - which is both tricky, and amazing when it works.

Slowly, over several hours, I filled in the frame, and the result is a stained glass pendant in beautiful shades of blue!

Because there are only two kilns for 12 students and not everyone works at the same speed, we've had a few "free days" in the studio. 

I decided to do some experimenting using dry enamel sifted on to metal (as opposed to brushing on vitreous enamel - the technique used for both cloisonné and plique-à-jour).

My very first project at ACC was a pair of silver monstera leaf earrings.  I wear them a lot - so I thought it would be fun to make some colorful ones with enamel.

Just as I did with the silver ones, I cut them out of metal sheet - but this time from copper - and instead of the transparent enamels I chose opaque ones.  

I'm very pleased with the results.  The first - green - pair looks great with my vesuvianite pendant (made in a previous ACC class with De), so I matched it with gold filled earwires. 

I cut out multiples, so after the green, I tried pink - inspired by the Hawaiian shirts my husband wears every Friday - and frankly, I love them!  I have a couple more pairs of copper blanks, who knows what color I'll try next?

There are two weeks left the in semester - but I wanted to get this post up for July  - so check Instagram to see what else we do before class ends.

As always, thanks for following along.  

Writing the blog helps exercise my brain, making jewelry works my fine motor skills, and obviously brings me joy. I hope reading about it brings you some, too.

Until next time.