Eat Dessert First

Okay, if you are anything like me... you love dessert.  A lot.  As in I'm passionately involved with chocolate cake and mint ice cream.

So, what does every passionate metalsmith who is passionate about ice cream and cake do?  She makes her own sterling silver dessert service.

You are looking at a handcrafted pie/cake server with its mate, an equally handcrafted ice cream spade.

The design for this service is actually based on the art of one of my favorite American painters:  Daniel Merriam.  His dream-like, Victorian-style paintings of houses and fantastical creatures are stunning.

I hope that you enjoy these pieces as much as I do... they are a delight for the eyes.

The Vajra Cup

This cup was both a joy and a pain in the ass to make.  The technique that I learned to make this cup is called "angle raising."  If you want to learn more, I actually found a pretty cool video on YouTube.

Believe it or not, this cup began its life as a flat piece of sheet metal, and with the help of hammers and raising stakes, I stretched and morphed the metal into this cup.

HOWEVER, the real story of this piece is in the concave piece of metal that I used to interrupt the basic shape of the cup.

To make that piece of metal I taught myself a technique called marriage-of-metals... that technique was off script as far as my intermediate metalsmithing education up until that time, and it's still a technique that I use today.

Marriage-of-Metals: a technique by which metals are differing colors are "married" together in a puzzle piece like fashion with solder to form a single sheet of metal.

What a pain in my butt.  Every time I make something using marriage-of-metals, I promise myself that it will be the last time.  The last time!  Because marrying metals together takes so much time and finesse and patience and skill.  It tests me every time.

But marrying metals together is so dang sexy.  It just gets me all hot and bothered :)

This piece gets its title from the design that I used in the marriage-of-metals.  The vajra is a symbols traditionally seen in Tibetan Buddhism... it symbolizes a lightening bolt, the force by which the spirit is purified.  This is a symbols that is very rich in depth and tradition.  I could say more, much more... but I think that's enough to wet your whistle :)

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