Professional PMC:

Sea of Japan Pendant
by Bridgette L. Rallo

 

Simple Silversmithing Techniques for the PMC Artist

It’s been a year since I began writing this column and WOW, how the time has flown! I truly hope I’ve explained a few things over the past twelve months, the most important of which is the idea that working with PMC can be so much more than a simple hobby. Of course, there is nothing wrong with pursuing jewelry making as a hobby. It’s relaxing, challenging and you walk away with beautiful items that you created. But PMC is also a wonderful tool for the professional art jeweler and that’s what I’ve been trying to illustrate in my column.

So, in keeping with the professional side of working with this amazing material, I’ve decided to incorporate some beginner’s traditional silversmithing techniques in this month’s lesson. The reason for this is two-fold: first of all, I want to enable PMC artists to view jewelry construction as a continuum of skills, each one of which expands their creative options. Secondly, I would like to dispel some of the perfectly understandable fears a PMC artist might have about tackling more traditional jewelry techniques.

There’s no denying it -- Sea of Japan, the pendant I’ll show you how to make in this lesson, is a difficult project. But the difficulty lies in the number of steps and not at all in the complexity of any one step. The trick here is to execute them all in an orderly fashion, and to take the time to construct each component of the piece carefully. If you do this, you’ll end up with something that has the look and feel of really fine art jewelry.

Now for a bit about the design: it’s an adaptation of a Japanese family crest, using a stylized “wave” pattern made from hammered fine silver wire. The wave is one of the most popular motifs in Japanese art.

Notes: This lesson may require the purchase of a few new tools. There is no way around it; in order to make the individual components, you will need a jeweler’s ball peen hammer, a small third-hand vise, a butane torch and a rubber block with a hole in the center. I do try to offer alternatives in many instances but there are none for these particular techniques.

Also, from now on I will assume that you have all of your basic PMC tools and will only list those necessary for the project at hand.

About The Author

I truly believe that jewelry is wearable art and I approach each of my pieces that way. The color and form of my stones, the compatibility of stone and metal type with the piece I have in mind, the “wearability” of each piece, all of these things are in my mind as I work on a particular composition. My work is strongly tied to the environment because I understand that Nature is the ultimate artist.

From my earliest memories, I have been in love with handmade art jewelry. My affair began in earnest during high school, when I started making pieces for myself and my friends. Visiting Italian artist Paula Wolfson noticed the quality of my design and my attention to detail and accepted me in an offhanded apprenticeship in painting for three years. Thus I absorbed the fundamentals of abstract art from one of its celebrated European proponents. Next, I studied and worked for East Hampton potter and sculptor Frank Pereira. There I met the next generation of 1960s jewelry artists, many of whom sold their work through Pereira.

But I was also a talented writer, and, after college and marriage to painter and architect Harry Rallo, I began a career as a newspaper reporter in Florida that lasted until 1999. Tired of the hectic pace of news writing, I decided to begin a new career handcrafting jewelry. My first step was to immerse herself in the mechanics of my craft: I studied advanced wire wrapping techniques with Amy Duloff of Ft. Lauderdale, FL; metalsmithing techniques with prize-winning jewelry artist Susan Lewis at the Boca Raton, FL, Museum of Art; and Precious Metal Clay (PMC) techniques with Vera Lightstone of Lightstone Studios in Manhattan. In June of 2005, I became a certified PMC instructor and, in January of 2006, a certified Level 2 instructor.

Visit Bridgette’s website, www.greenwoodsstudio.com,

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