Argentium & Silver Clay Clasps

Today it occurred to me that I could decorate simple forged clasps with fine silver clay components. I needed a clasp to coordinate with my latest birdhouse pendant. I've been making toggles, but I actually prefer hook & loop closures for necklaces. So I formed the hook and loop from Argentium, fusing the rings closed, then added a fine silver flower to make the clasp coordinate beautifully with the larger flower spacers and the flower at the peak of the birdhouse. Voila! A custom clasp with little work.

Birdhouse necklace
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, sterling chain, Argentium wire

The chain I used, however, was conventional sterling, so I got my practice in with soldering all the fine links closed to make the pendant secure.

Earrings: Heat Hardening

A common platitude for artists is that working in a series fosters development of the work. The series may be performed in parallel, simultaneously working on several pieces, or in series, completing one after another. In either case, an idea generated by one version influences the next. This provides relief to the artist - we don't have to incorporate every trick we know into one piece, but can experiment with one or two ideas at a time and hopefully get a better handle on how to incorporate them going forward.

Anemone Drop earrings
©2012 Vickie Hallmark 
sterling clay, Argentium wire

As I play with the notion of components, I've tried fusing them onto Argentium and pasting them together in the clay state. Today I have several pairs of earrings influenced by a repeat of my Flock bracelet currently under construction. I love the sinuous movement given to the links by an attractive set of beaded linkages. Most jewelry designers would use jump rings, but I like the design element introduced by the beaded heads of these connectors.

Bird & Nest earrings
©2012 Vickie Hallmark 
sterling clay, Argentium wire

To get beautiful beads, I always use Argentium sterling, which balls up without the ugly wrinkling seen on conventional sterling wire. The first bead is easy to do on the bare wire. The second bead is tricky, because the other components in contact with the wire draw heat away, making it quite difficult to get the wire hot enough. There are two tricks to making this work well - one is Argentium, which heats more locally than regular sterling, and the other is the right torch. A small, tight, very hot flame gets in and out before the silver transmits the heat to its neighbors. Argentium also has the added advantage of heat hardening. After I get the beaded linkages all completed, the jewelry goes into the kiln at 570° F for a couple of hours to increase the hardness far beyond that of regular work-hardened sterling. Thus the wires, while not the typical jump rings, are beautiful and sturdy as well.

Simple Jewelry

To balance out the more complicated earrings I've been drawn to lately, I decided to whip out a few super simple pieces this week. I pulled out a texture that I've not used much to cut pieces for these two pair of earrings, accented with pearls. I've procrastinated on purchasing pearls, because the ones I wanted are expensive. I wanted the nice large round pearls, not the tiny ones or the rough shaped ones, and that made them seem too pricey when looking at a full strand. But I finally convinced myself that parsed out one or two at a time, they don't really add that much to the materials cost of my jewelry, especially when paired with a simpler silver component.

Finch earrings
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, Argentium wire, pearl

Sparrow earrings
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, Argentium wire, pearl

This super simple pendant got a silver leaf drop before the pearls arrived.

Flock pendant
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, Argentium wire, sterling chain

Working with Jewelry Components

As I try to increase my jewelry production, I'm exploring the idea of working with components. I find it much easier to sit myself down at the bench to produce a given small component than to conceptualize a new overall design. Thus, I can make a hundred tiny leaves or a load of hallmarks to go on the back of all my pieces. Since I've been experimenting with flowers lately, I've gotten my technique down for cutting a very simple five petaled flower from a disc. A few cuts, a few smooshes with a shaper and there's another one.

Anemone earrings
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, Argentium wire

Then I can utilize the components in a myriad of ways. I'm outputting them in both fine and sterling clay, so they are ready for either fusing onto Argentium bases or incorporating into a larger metal clay piece. Some of the easiest jewelry is just simple combinations of flowers and leaves made into pendants and earrings via a few (metal clay) jump rings.

Anemone 2 pendant
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, Argentium wire

By the way, sterling components fuse onto Argentium just as well as the fine silver. Interestingly, the copper rises to the top of the sterling, but doesn't seem to really firescale, at least in the time required to fuse. I simply remove the copper with citric acid pickle.

Sterling Clay Pendants and Fused Chain

For whatever reason, it seems I make earrings more than anything else, followed by pins and bracelets. I don't make enough pendants or necklaces, so this week I decided to make a few for an upcoming show. The first is the simplest of five-petal flowers and leaves sandwiched together, with what is becoming my trademark leaf drop. While searching for misplaced wire, I found an old stash of snake chains that are perfect for hanging such simple pendants.

Anemone pendant
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay

Then I decided to made a treetop pendant. I reverted to the triangular shape that often appeals to me, but I flipped it over so that I could hang an entire row of leaves from the bottom. Having trouble deciding how to do the bail, I finally settled on two half jump rings on either side in the back. Since a chain would show if just run through the two loops, I needed to affix jump rings to either side.

Canopy pendant
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, Argentium wire

That led me to thinking about how I've been wanting to make my own chain. So I pulled out the jump ring maker, never before used, and cranked out my first completely fused Argentium chain, which was easy but tedious. I consider it great training in heat control, with few links melted or deformed. There are actually soldered links next to the leaves that break up the chain, but at the very end I was able to fuse the links next to pendant, as I developed more skill in holding the piece with only the joint exposed to the flame.

Warbler 2 earrings
©2012 Vickie Hallmark
sterling clay, Argentium wire

Of course, I still made earrings!