They Call Me Mellow Niello - Wildacres, 2019

Another summer is almost over and I'm happy to say that I was able to take Gia's class at Wildacres in June.  The Florida Society of Goldsmiths puts this on every year and they do an AMAZING job!  This time I learned a technique called "Niello."  Niello is a black metallic alloy used as a surface decoration and is fused to a metal base.  We made designs in sterling silver using engraving tools (and sometimes burrs), making designs in the silver. Once finished we filled the spaces with the Niello substance and fired.  Once cool, we then sanded until the designs surfaced. 

Such a great class!  That's Fred the Deadhead in Cyndi's hand.  She snuck him into Meike's bed when Meike was off doing something else in hopes of freaking her out when she walked back into her room.  

Personally, I would have screamed...loudly...if I came upon THIS in my room, but Meike is on to Cyndi's shenanigans.  LOL!

Always a joy to come back to this beautiful view again. 

Below you see us outside watching Gia make the Niello.  He's firing silver, copper, lead and ground sulfur.  Some of us came prepared for this with our heavy-duty respirator masks.  If you are downwind from the smell of these chemicals while they're being fired, it's not going to be a good thing.  The lead and sulfur are highly toxic.

Me & Meike

Here is the beginning of a piece.  This was the first time I'd ever used engraving tools for ANYTHING, so my work is messy.  But by the end of the week, I had a better feel for this process.

When the piece was finished with the design work, I added the black, powdered Niello and fired.  This is how it looks once fired.  Then I went to the sanding machine and took off most of the Niello there, and finished with a regular file.

Here's how it looked when almost finished.  Just a little more sanding and polishing to do.

This is Gia's finished pendant along with the bracelet he made in class.

I was the lucky purchaser of this bracelet at the auction!  Sooooo happy to have this.  It's gorgeous.

Fred liked to be with us every day in our studio. 

This is a sterling silver pendant that I had etched at home and brought with me to Wildacres. I filled it with Neillo, fired, then sanded and polished.  It came out pretty good.  I was surprised how much detail there was.  Another person in the class brought some Metal Clay pieces she had made and they also came out great filled with Niello.

Another beautiful sky, another wonderful week in North Carolina.  

There is a sign entering Wildacres that says, "You are now leaving the real world."  At the end of the week as you begin to drive home, the sign says, "You are now entering the real world."  I can't tell you how true those words are, but everyone who goes to Wildacres for a week knows what I'm talking about.

Wildacres, 2011

Another summer at Wildacres came and went without my remembering to blog about it here.  So I'm going back and gathering the photos and thoughts I have from another memorable adventure to share with you.  That's Donnie in the video above.  Donnie helps us with all the equipment that we need during our stay and is always there to lend a helping hand...but watch out when he's got that whip in his hand!

This year was a special time at Wildacres because it was Jean Stark's last summer teaching there.  Jean had been there every summer for 25 years!  Everyone who loved her as a teacher looked forward to this time every year, so there were quite a few tears shed this week.  Jean took a liking to Donnie's whip, trying to convince us that she was going to come down hard on us if we didn't behave.

Jean taught a class in enameling this summer and we all learned how to create lovely little pears.  She brought along lots and lots of examples:

Leslie and Karen were very proud of their creations:

Gail (sniffling a bit) and Robert have been in Jeans class without fail every summer.  I hope they come back in 2012.  

This is one of Jean's enameled pieces that I find stunningly beautiful.   Maybe someday I'll be this good (hopeful thinking).

And here's me with another one of my favorite teachers, Julia Woodman!  She's always kind, encouraging and has a magical bag of forging techniques.  I'm presently back in her class at Spruill and feel like I've returned home again.

My friends, teachers and classmates:

Would you like to see my pear?  It's amazing that it took an entire week to complete two pears (I haven't set the other one into a bezel yet), but enameling can be a very long process.  

Okay - goodbye for another year, Wildacres.  I hope to be back in 2012.    

Bewitched by Pitch

Gia has been teaching at Spruill, so I have been able to continue learning Repousse/Chasing, which I am truly loving. It has taken me a few starts and stops to get to this point. My first exposure to Repousse/Chasing was in a four-day workshop with Valentin Yotkov a few years ago (brought here by the Georgia Goldsmith's Group). I thoroughly enjoyed learning this new technique, but the class lasted only four days, and I wasn't quite sure what to do on my own after it ended. A couple of years later Victoria Lansford taught a class and I learned a few new techniques I had not learned from Valentin. But not until I started working with Gia did it all begin to come together. Gia is a true master and makes it all look easy, which, of course, it is not. Here he is showing us one of his own "works in progress."


I recently began an experimental design on copper for a cuff bracelet. I then transferred the same design (with a few modifications) onto sterling silver and am working on it presently. Doing a model in copper beforehand is extremely helpful. The mistakes are made in the copper, not in the silver. The one error I made on this copper piece was taking the design too far to the ends of the cuff, which I have corrected in the silver piece.


We often begin our designs on a "hard or medium" ROMA Plastilina before placing the metal in the pitch, but if there is not a lot of height desired on the design, using only pitch is completely acceptable. Here's is Gia's example of a project he's been teaching the beginning students, this one done totally on red pitch.

This is the design the entire class is working on.   Here we have Gia's example:

This is my final design, which I sawed out of the copper when finished.