This summer I had a chance to complete a new piece as an entry for Silver Accessories Contest 2015, organized by Aida Chemical Industries and Art Clay Japan. The contest is held biannually and each time I take it as an opportunity to create a piece which is, to put it in a simple way, more challenging when it comes to realization.
I have won several awards from the contest, with my two years ago ‘Coral’ as the Grand Prix. This year, I created ‘The Winter Garden’, and it’s recently announced to win an Honorable Mention award. I’m grateful to take part and be among the award recipients!
The theme for the contests was ‘My Favorite’ and being a true garden lover, ‘The Winter Garden’ came straight out of my personal experience.
What could be more magical than a tropical sanctuary in the middle of snowy earth?
My winter garden consists of three parts: the frame, the ‘nature’ and the ‘man made structure’. When assembled together, the three pieces create the scenery of the winter garden, but each element could be worn separately as a pendant.
As usual, I started with sketches. When it comes to constructing, I made every shape and pattern by hand with my original drawings as the reference. This piece was a very tricky one to realize, as I combined silver, copper and resin in a design that requires everything to fit precisely in order to make it work. I feel the process was pretty much like constructing a real building, in fact I made so many ‘technical drawings’ as my guide.
I created the frame to literally represent an architectural form and used the shape of snow flake as the pattern on the front side instead of a traditional window grid.
To emphasize the freezing effect, I applied part of the surface with some glistening fine silver grains and used a moonstone cabochon to be a center of the area. Moonstone could look like a mysterious piece of ice with its iridescent sparkle. On the other sides of the frame, I designed branches pattern. The door of the frame could be opened with a slide lock.
Each part of the piece is handmade with my original drawings as reference.
The second element, ‘Nature’, is a pendant on its own and consists of scenery with plants and water. I do replica of plants in many of my pieces, mostly petals and flowers, but this is the first time I made the replica of tiny palm tree barks, only 2mm in diameter!
The water part was made using UV Resin. I mixed the color pigments to create a unique color to represents the shade of green commonly found in a natural pond. A few cubic zirconias added some sparkles. The water part is transparent so you can see through to the pattern of the silver engraving and ‘water fall’ beneath it.
One of the new thing I’ve made is miniature bark of palm tree. I think it’s quite cool ;)
The third element, representing man made structure, was the wall of the waterfall. I created a marble look using silver and copper and New Mokume Gane technique, paired with hand engraved silver.
To achieve the pattern I had to experiment several times, but it truly is more art than science, at least at this point :D To enrich the garden scenery, I also created the waterfall effect using a group of fine chain strands which is removable when the pendant is worn by itself.
Here the piece was ready for hand engraving of the silver part.
I love the idea of having my own ‘mini winter garden’ I could enjoy anytime. After having the idea for quite a while, I’m glad I’ve made this piece into a reality. Along the way I picked up new techniques and wisdom which is always great for the creative life :) Several ideas have sprung up from the process and so let’s see what comes next. My piece, together with other beautiful pieces from the contest, in which some are from people I’m happy to call as teacher, student, colleague and friend will be displayed in Tokyo National Theater in October-November 2015.
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