Carolina Strauch (Schialer)

“Hidden & Defiant Tendrils”

Hidden and defiant tendrils was a challenge for me since I do not have much experience in enamelling. I wanted to have the hidden bit so that you can see the tendrils on a second glance. The defiant part I wanted to put it on the setting. My first hurdle was to place the tendrils on the fine silver, so after a couple of tries I roll printed the base with some formed wires. Then I formed the trillion, shaped the silver piece and put on the counter enamel. As it came out of the kiln, it had warped – I forgot to anneal the metal after forming before enamelling - ouch! Never mind, hat to go on. The forming of the cloisonne wires and putting them on was not so difficult to my surprise. I used wallpaper paste, very thin, to glue the wires on the silver and put flux on – different flux on different parts, because the colours I used, not all work with the silver flux.

Creating the setting was a real challenge, since I used very thin (0,35mm) fine silver bezel wire and until now I had not worked with fine silver for setting. It was a difficult job to solder the bezel on the sterling back-plate without melting the bezel. Had to do this 3 times, because I melted it twice.

I really enjoyed doing this piece and learned a lot about forming the metal, shading the enamel, and firing it. All in all this is my third piece, and I am very satisfied with the outcome. Although I can see all the mistakes. I guess this experience will make me create a better piece next time. Thank you so much for this opportunity!!!

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