Congratulations to Patrice Baker, winner of the Advanced Category in the Great Combinations Challenge! Her winning entry is a reversible locket which uses nearly a sheet of nearly invisible mica rock to protect a fragile leaf skeleton and a naturally shed butterfly wing. Join us for an interview with Patrice about her amazing piece.
“For quite some time,” says Patrice, “I have been making butterfly wing and skeleton leaf pendants, with the fragile material protected by sheets of mica and sandwiched between two washers of silver, with the whole thing riveted together. When I heard that this challenge was about including other materials, I knew it was right up my alley!”
“In this project, I knew the individual front piece and back piece would work, because I make this style of pendant frequently. The trick was to build this in the right order with the front and back pieces hinged together and fired, then the fired ‘washers’ riveted into place with the fragile material and mica sandwiched in. Usually, I make these pendants round, but that was going to cause me problems with the hinge. I chose an oval so that I could flatten the side where I would be attaching the hinge.”
“I did run into difficulty, because the pendant is essentially four layers of silver: the front, the back and the two ‘washers’ that hold the fragile captured material. That meant I had to make each layer as thin as possible. One of my thin washers broke. The solution to this was to fire the silver for 2 hours to gain maximum strength. I also had to re-fire the hinged front and back because even though I had made the bail, I forgot to attach it for the first firing. The hinge was challenging, because it had to be just right to allow the pendant to close, but still allow for the inside washers.”
Patrice loves combining metal clay with other materials. “I will use anything I can get my grubby hands on,” she laughs. “My husband hates going for walks with me because I’m always peering at the ground and walking very slowly.
“I was lucky enough to teach a college level course called “Alternative Materials in Jewellery Making” and I included resin, Faux Bone, mica, concrete, fabric, found objects (my favourite is a very tiny wasp nest), and in Canada, it is easy to get fossilized Mammoth tusk. My thanks to Robert Dancik who walked me through my syllabus as I was prepping for the course!
“Currently, I am creating pendants and brooches using stainless steel obtained from the damaged door of a DeLorean. I set the pieces of steel after firing because the steel gets too dark in the kiln.”
Patrice has entered two other challenges. “I think we get too caught up in making for shows, sales, custom orders and so forth, and lose sight of creating something solely to challenge ourselves. My biggest worry in entering challenges is the photography. I think because I’ve been a teacher all my working life, I’m comfortable with having thing evaluated. Also, I enter a lot of shows with really tough juries, and I am able to not take it personally when I don’t get in.”
Her advice for artists about entering challenges? “First, enter your best quality work, with extra attention to excellence in the crafting of the piece. Second, the photography has to the very best you can manage. Get help with it, pay a photographer (or trade jewellery!!), or take a course in how to photograph jewellery. It will always pay off.”
About Patrice
Find Patrice online at silverfishstudios.ca, on Facebook at Silverfish Studios, and on Instagram at @silverfishst
