 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Wall mounted sculpture. Steel, bronze, brass, silver,copper, fiber optic disc. 24"H
Price: $4500
Specula
The mineral ulexite, aka TV Stone, does this wonderful thing: a strangely altered image of whatever is placed beneath it appears on the surface. Looking for a more stable alternative to TV stone I came across several discs of fiber optic glass.
I built a little garden of brass, fine silver and copper and set one of these discs on top; the bits of wire and tube closest to the disc are sharpest the others seem more ghostly. The fiber optic material has become almost impossible to find.
Specularia were mica windowpanes found in ancient Rome and the Museum of Natural History in Florence, Italy is known as La Specola or “the observatory”.
Wall mounted sculpture. Steel, bronze, brass andsterling. 14"h
Price: $4300
Cinch
Though a strong and durable structure that may last for years, the layers of a hornet’s nest inevitably yield to decay without the ceaseless ministrations of the female workers. I believe that there is life beyond utility, but it seems ashamed that such a complex and beautiful endeavor will only be used for a single spring-to-fall season.
I thought a lot about wasps and hornets as I made Cinch. I added layer after layer, as they would, the mass of the sculpture steadily increasing. It can be so nice to be free of the constraints of weight and size that govern a piece of jewelry.
Wall mounted sculpture. Steel, sterling,24k gold leaf
Price: $1900
Pedicel
A pedicel is the dark, chitinous stalk that anchors or holds a hornet’s or paper wasp’s nest. It is the first thing that the young queen builds before the eggs, that become her worker daughters, have even been laid. As I was building Cinch I found myself thinking again and again about the structure of the pedicel and it became an increasingly significant part of my design and conceptual process-- although it never played that role in the completed piece.
The challenge in making this sculpture was soldering the mass of fabricated sterling cells onto the steel forging. Sterling and steel conduct heat very differently.
Hanging sculpture. Bronze,brass,sterling, lens. 9'h
Price: $3000
Squint
I had long thought of installing a lens as a fixture: a portal in the form of a hanging bit of household hardware, always at the ready to magnify whatever small thing was brought to it. Influenced by changes in my vision, I began to obscure and modify the lens in Squint. I carved the lattice into the glass with a silicon carbide separating disc.
The links in the chain are hand-forged in silicon bronze and then welded. Each is slightly different in gauge and dimension, beginning at 4" long and tapering from the ceiling to about 1", for a total chain length of 9 feet. It really is a large-scale pendant and is built in the same way that I would build a wearable jewelry version in gold or silver.
Bronze, shibuichi, brass, lens, 24k gold, cement. Central element is3"w.
Pax
Pax was built before the brooch Tel but expresses the same sentiment: you've gotta dig hard to unearth the fragile and precious thing that is peace.
Forged, welded, fabricated.
Wall-sited sculpture. Bronze, sterling, 18k,22k, lens. Central element 3"w.
photo: doug yaple
Price: $4500
Tiny Golden Medusa
Built for the exhibition Big, Little this wall sconce was displayed beside my neckpiece Medusa (right) whose central element is a 1.75" ball woven from sterling and 18k gold.
The golden analog beneath the lens is only 3/16" wide.
Portfolios: belt buckles brooches drawings earrings neckpieces objects rings sculptures smaller wearables