Playing with color

Right now I'm playing with color. These test pieces on the left are using two colors of Adirondack brand alcohol inks, with Ice Resin as a sealant.

I'm really loving the intensity of color that I can get out of these inks. I'm definitely one of the people who gets "drunk on color". At the local art supply store, I savor each hue in the aisle of colored pencils. I need bright green in the winter and on grey days, whether in the form of a salad or a blinding lime-colored shirt. And I'm simply hopeless in a yarn store.

As I wait for more shades of ink to show up on the UPS truck, I'm scheming about the ways I might use color in my jewelry. What if I wasn't confined to using the colors I can find in my gemstones (shiny though they are), but could summon any combination of hue and shade at will?

I'm thinking of tidal pools out west and the water in Riven. Of deep gazing pools and of ponds lined with glittering pebbles. Of all the ways I can bring together the highbrow art of metalwork and the playful, down-to-earth craftsyness of ink and resin.

The pendant that started it all--a custom order, for someone who asked if the background could be blue. 

What makes me tick: Myst

(This is the first post in what I hope will be a series about my influences, inspiration, and the artists I admire!)


Replica of Gehn's Crest by ~rivenwanderer on deviantART

This isn't jewelry, though it has some similarities with the wearable things I make. It's a six-inch disc made for a contest on DeviantArt. I joined a group over there that's all about the computer game Myst and its sequels. And I couldn't resist pulling out all the stops and spending my weekend recreating one of the elaborate designs from Riven, my favorite game.


When I first played Myst as a kid, I was dazzled by the revolutionary (for its time) graphics, and by the concept of books that could literally transport you to new places. It was a concept much like the Wood between the Worlds from the Narnia books my mother read to me growing up. And the linking books in Myst provided me with a way to imagine writing my own worlds, and then travelling to them. My sketchbooks filled with doodles of islands, forests, and buildings.

Riven was an experience like Myst ten times over; a world much bigger, grittier, and realer than any fantasy world I'd seen before. Every surface showed the effects of weather, time, and wear; every puzzle existed for a logical reason; every aspect of the ecosystem fit together perfectly; every building bore the mark of its builder. I spent a wonder-filled week playing the game. Then, I wanted to know how it was done; I wanted to create real-feeling worlds like it. I pored over the "making of" video and learned to make my own computer graphics. In the end, I drifted away from 3D modeling, but the lessons about giving objects depth, texture, and a life of their own have stayed with me.

In making things out of metal, my aim is always to create something that feels like a real artifact from an imaginary world. Something that transports the wearer the way that Myst and Riven transported me.

Victorian jewel beetle wings

I recently read about the restoration of this Victorian dress, which is covered with real beetle wings. It grabbed my interest because I've been using beetle wings in my jewelry for quite some time--looking at my Flickr log, since at least March of 2008. I love their brilliant, iridescent colors, and their feather-lightness makes them perfect for earrings. So it was really cool to learn a bit about an important piece of fashion history that also incorporated the same kind of beetle wings over a hundred years ago.

A new continent

I started out online in Myst fandom. And for me, it wasn't just about the games and books--it was about worldbuilding. Imagining Ages of my own; filling journals with detailed plans and maps and sketches; rendering them in Terragen or Blender. Making islands in my head and on my computer. I haven't actively worked on digital worlds in a long time, maybe because working as a programmer makes me want my hobbies to take me away from the screen. But I still love the idea of making worlds, and try to work it into my metalwork whenever I can.

Yesterday, I tried out my new crucible by melting down scrap and pouring it onto salt to make a textured silver blob; tonight, I sawed that blob in half, so that the interesting half can be soldered onto something. Something maplike, probably. I don't know exactly what it'll be; the sharpie doodles on the copper in the picture are just the visual equivalent of thinking out loud. But the silver reminds me of a continent rising out of the water, and it makes me so very happy to be building islands again.

Oh, and I'm also feeling nicely productive about making more of those shiny gear pendants for International Steampunk City! I'm waiting on a polishing attachment to come in the mail before proceeding, but I'm done with all the soldering for all of these: