In the Studio: Chasing Ghosts

I have been chasing an idea of bringing layered translucency into my narrative jewelry for a few years with the intention of capturing the feeling of fading memories, absence, and loss. 

Recently, I landed on an interesting direction that incorporates layering, depth, and light that I am eager to continue to explore. Depending on how the pieces are viewed, the figures in the foreground disappear like an apparition – a trick of the light. Like most of my work, the concept behind this particular piece is based on an original poem.

The imagery I selected for these pieces reflects themes and words from my writing, which is also captured in hand engraved excerpts. This skill of engraving is something I began learning around a year ago as a means of incorporating my poetry into my metalwork in a more refined way rather than etching, which is the technique I used in the past. After much frustration, confusion, and practice, my engraved script is beginning to take form; this is an exciting advancement toward the look I have always imagined for my work.

Hand engraving has become an important technique in my work.

My messy bench in the mid-maelstrom of ideation.

The in-progress piece above incorporates an inscription from a longer poem.

These pieces incorporate snapshots of strangers; I have removed their loved ones with gouache, excised bits of their unfamiliar spaces, and trinkets, and fathers with a scalpel, and I veiled their faces in layers of golden mica, and all at once I am called to recon with the insignificance of my own monuments. But this is not sad. Rather it is a miracle that these ethereal memories — cells that contain all the world’s loves and suffering and stories — have ever existed at all. 

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