Intermediate Jewelry: functional flatware

Well, here it is... my last project of the fall semester for my Intermediate Jewelry Studio.

Both of these pieces are made of Sterling Silver, a combination of sheet metal and forged pieces. At the very least, the part of the service that touches the food has to be silver to be functional... any other type of metal could possibly contaminate your food and make you sick. So, my pieces did not have to be entirely out of silver, but it was both a design choice and ambitious challenge that I made for myself. And I will say this... I was so incredibly nervous working with this much sterling. Combined, I think the materials for this project cost me close to $200. Oh, but it was so worth it... don't my pieces look swell? I made them as a set: an ice cream spade and a pie server.

My design concept came from looking at the gingerbread trim on Victorian houses, and I brought those elements into the pieces with all the piercing (where there are cutouts in the metal). One requirement of this assignment is that the pieces had to be at least 50% forged, meaning that the metal had to be shaped and moved with hammers. My handles are forged.

Now, I have to tell you that I did hot-forging on this project... meaning that I built myself a tiny kiln out of fire bricks and aimed a lit torch into the kiln to take it up to temperature. Using a kiln let me keep my metal hot as I was working it, periodically putting it into the kiln between hammer blows. Working with hot metal makes the metal easier to move and less likely to crack or break (as you pound and shape the metal with hammers, it becomes brittle, and if you don't anneal it or keep it hot, you risk cracking your piece in two). So, now you understand my anxiety... you spend all this money and all this time on a piece and one miscalculation, one second, one mistake could force you to start all over. I know a few people in my class who had to start again just because of this very problem.

I was lucky though: no cracks in my piece at all. I still consider that a miracle, I still don't know how that happened. Luck maybe. Or vigilance. One or the other, take your pick.

Although, I will say this... I am not a forger. My pieces do not really look forged, I could just as easily created my handles from sheet metal as from forged strip stock. My pieces do not really embody the change in thickness or movement that forging can accomplish. So, while my pieces are beautiful and I'm proud of them, they are perhaps not the best example of forging.

So, enjoy. I nearly gave myself a heart attack working on this project, but I'm glad I did it, I'm glad it's over, I'm glad that it turned out so nicely.