Tania Hogg

“Veiled Shadows”

While I've been silversmithing for a few years now, I've only just started to experiment with enamels in my work (I'd literally only made one pair of disc shaped stud earrings before this), so I was a little nervous about taking part.

The theme I was given for this piece was 'Veiled Shadows'. It got me thinking about the shadows you see if you go snorkeling in the ocean, when you dive down, look up and see shafts of light piercing through, creating a dappled pattern on the ocean floor. This idea is reflected in the undulating fan shape and organic cut-out pattern of the piece. The burnished 22k gold glints in contrast to the satin finish of the silver, with pockets of deep sea coloured Royal Blue and Genoa Blue enamels. It was a challenging piece for me, using techniques new to me such as etching, Plique-à-jour and Champlevé. I initially wanted to fill all the cut out parts with enamel, only to find that when I tested this, once the piece was sitting against my neck, no light could shine through from behind to illuminate the colours. They all just looked really dark and pretty much the same. So instead I etched some areas, so that there was silver metal behind the enameled parts to reflect their pretty sea colours. I'm loving experimenting with this new media and can't wait to make more.

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