A Journey in Making, Part One

(photo: "Khepera". carved boxwood, sterling silver, enamel on copper. copyright emi savacool, 2009. model credit: kaitlin kerr. photo credit: ken yanoviak.)

I've encountered many people who are totally floored when I tell them the price of a piece. Most people are not accustomed to paying much for jewelry - and when H&M sells necklaces for less than 10 dollars, why would you want to pay any more?

I always try to explain to them that the price reflects the amount of hours that go into a particular piece of jewelry. In addition to the artist's unique concept, which is valuable in and of itself, there is a HUGE amount of skilled labor in Crafts. In fact, when you break it down, many times the artist is actually selling their piece at a loss!

To help explain why it takes so much time to make a piece, I've decided to do a little "show-and-tell". For my last piece, "Khepera", I took many in-progress photographs, which I am happy to share with you now!

We start with the inspiration. This winter I had ordered two mounted specimens, a cicada and a beetle, in order to help me understand the three-dimensional qualities of these insects. The beetle in particular was stunning and dramatic. Next to the beetle, you can see what I started with - a thick block of boxwood.

I made a very rough mock-up of the form of the head with plasticine clay, then roughed out the general form in wood with a bandsaw. This picture shows a bit of carving with a flex shaft and serrated burr - my primary carving tool.

The general form is carved here. In this picture you can see two horns I ended up getting rid of on the top of the head. A lot of design decisions are made right in the middle of making something, and I thought these horns looked dumb, so they got the axe.

In this photo the head is fully carved and sanded. (I must have figured out the macro function on my camera then too, because the picture gets a lot clearer from here on out!) You can see I used the clay again to estimate the size of the rest of the body. Notice the beautiful and careful modeling of the clay here. (Har har!)

The body in wood, cut out on the bandsaw. (This is still without the middle section.)

The body, roughly carved with a flex shaft and burr.

Precautionary measures - wood carving produces a LOT of sawdust, so it is important to cover yourself from head to toe. I use goggles/glasses, a mask, an apron, and a handkerchief to cover my neck so no dust goes down my shirt.
You can see some of the dust in this shot, and the rest...

...is mostly here. Usually it just falls off of my lap when I stand up to take a break.
This is what results.

to be continued in Part Two...

My Studio-In-Progress

Mallory wrote in her blog that "New Jersey = Purgatory". I moved back home with my parents this weekend, and I'm fighting against that ennui that comes after finishing a busy semester and trying to keep the momentum up.

This is where my new studio will be. It doesn't look like much now, but this is after I cleared piles of plumbing debris away, swept up, and scrubbed the walls. Tomorrow I'm going to masonry etch the concrete to get it ready for painting. Once it is painted, I can set up my new bench (!!!) and all of my tools and GET WORKING! My fingers are itching already.


This is my new bench! It's not technically a jeweler's bench - it's a lab table that my dad got from a job he finished in New Brunswick. Still, the whole thing is fire-resistant, it's really sturdy, and it looks really sharp. The only problem I anticipate is not having a bench pan to catch my filings, but I might ghetto-rig something up.

I can't stress enough how hard I am trying to keep working at jewelry. I'm trying to do one studio-related chore a day, and so far I have gotten a lot done. Looking at everyone's blog updates keeps me really motivated - it makes me want to work when I see that other people are working too.

This Friday - Crafts Exhibition at the DCCA! (Congrats to Maricha for having her piece featured on the website!)

Cameo

There was an assignment in Advanced Jewelry where we had to create some sort of cameo. We're accustomed to the image of the Roman-inspired cameo, where layered agate is carved into a profile portrait, usually of a beautiful woman.

This assignment was meant to elaborate on the idea of a cameo. What makes a cameo? What qualities does it have? How does it describe a person differently than an actual portrait? Narrowing this down, we came up with a few criteria: cameos were usually in relief, and they described some attributes about their subject - physically or emotionally - without including a background or context.



This project was difficult for me to start, but the result was my favorite piece - inspired by stories from my beekeeper friend Jacqui (jacquialexander.com) and by the beautiful image above (not by me - but I can't find the artist's name.)


(photo: "Elegy". carved boxwood, sterling silver, nickel silver, onyx, dyes. copyright emi savacool, 2009. photo credit: ken yanoviak.)

back it up, back it up...

I've been trying to post my pieces in order, but I got a bit ahead of myself in excitement. Here's two related pieces that I completed in the fall of 2008. During the summer, I had been picking raspberries in the backyard of my parents' house. In the woods, I came upon the perfect skeleton of a deer lying curled in the leaves. In the hot, quiet afternoon, it looked as if it were sleeping.

I couldn't stop thinking about this skeleton for weeks and weeks. The day I left to go back to Philly, I took a big bucket out into the woods and collected the entire skeleton.

(photo: "Osis Mantodea". carved boxwood, sterling silver, ruby, stainless steel, bone, pigment. copyright emi savacool, 2008. photo credit: ken yanoviak.)

"Osis Mantodea" was the first piece featuring a bit of this gorgeous skeleton. My teacher had suggested that I try and invent imaginary bug forms instead of using existing ones. This piece was completed for a project where we had to make something in one week. (?!! Why did I decide to do this?!! I'm a lunatic...)

(photo: "Remnant Curios". carved boxwood, bone, pigment, sterling silver. copyright emi savacool, 2008. photo credit: ken yanoviak.)

I love these little guys. They were originally imagined as pins, and could definitely still be worn, although I think I prefer them as little objects. They are totally weird. One of them is completely carved boxwood, with no bone in it - can you tell which one?

Exciting New Photos!

My photos are done! I'm so excited to share with you my pieces from the Crafts Senior Show, Out of Hand. I'm going to span them out a little so I have space to tell you about each one.

This piece may look a little familiar. It was photographed in progress (only the paper parts) for the Out of Hand gallery book and invitations. This piece was inspired by the life of the cicada, who emerges from the ground after 17 years to mate and die. Their transformations leaves behind piles and piles of shed skins.




(photos: "Emergence". carved boxwood, sterling silver, moonstone, copper plated chain, paper, gold leaf, pigment. copyright emi savacool, 2009. model credit: kaitlin kerr. photo credit: ken yanoviak.)

Renderings to tide you over.

I'm waiting on some images of my work from photographer Ken Yanoviak, but in the meantime, I thought I'd share some jewelry renderings from this semester.

Jewelry renderings are scale designs of jewelry. They can be done in most mediums, but are supposed to be fairly true to what the piece would look like in real life. I prefer to make my renderings in gouache and watercolor on bright paper. I am working on making the earrings on purple paper in real life - I'll keep you posted!

a brief update...

I know it's been awhile since I last updated, but I've been totally swamped with work for the senior show. Now that the show is over, I hope to be making more regular updates. My portfolio website will also be up and running soon.

In the meantime, to tide you over, here are some images from the UARTS Crafts Senior Exhibiton, "Out of Hand".






(me and the family in front of my display)