Saul Bell Award Finalist: Jennifer Smith-Righter

The Etsy Metal Clay Team is pleased to present and congratulate our friend and member Jennifer Smith-Righter, known to us as Wearable by Design, for her place as a Saul Bell Award finalist!

Jennifer is thrilled to be a finalist and is grateful to the Saul Bell organization. Winners will be announced at the JCK Conference in Las Vegas in late May.

Cirque 2

Jennifer was kind enough to share her project notes with us:

Swiss trams on a cable; the swoosh and click of sliding doors; acrobats on the high wire: all of these inspire Cirque 2 - a whimsical piece that dances along a cable chain. This necklace features three precision milled discs with flush set stones, fixed into position by two corresponding plates, all held together by three silver pins.

I began by cutting three differing sized discs from a 3 mm slab of PMC. Once dried, the exact centers were marked. A hole was drilled to mount the discs on a flex shaft mandrel.

Once attached to the flex shaft, the disks were held perpendicular against a piece of fine sandpaper in order to create a true circle and then a fine, circular needle file was held against the edge of the disc to create the groove necessary to allow for tension against the cable.

Then, a series of graduated stones were flush set into the discs. The largest has a series of five, the middle has a series of 4 and the smallest has 3. I wanted the stones to accentuate the sense of motion and whimsy.

The three discs were laid on a piece of paper and pre-fit to the cable in place. With a fine mechanical pencil, the center positions were marked on the three discs, allowing for shrinkage and room to slide the finished piece over the clasp of the cable necklace. This triangle of dots was used as the basis for the template for the two plates.

Once fired and finished, the ends of three 18 ga. fine silver wires were balled. I sandwiched the three discs between the plates with the wires and laid it ball side down on a firing brick. With a torch, the remaining protruding wire was balled on the back side of the rivet to lock the pieces in place. After cooling and refinishing, I slid the entire mechanism onto the cable chain.

Materials:

PMC
Cubic Zirconia; Round Faceted
Large Disk: 4 mm; 3.5 mm; 3 mm; 2.5 mm; 2 mm
Medium Disk: 3.5 mm; 3 mm; 2.5 mm; 2 mm
Small Disk: 2.5 mm; 2 mm; 1.5 mm
18 Gauge Fine Silver Wire
2 mm Sterling Silver Cable Necklace

The second piece in the moveable art series: Art Modern