It seems I have been  making only bracelets this summer and here are two more. I was commissioned by my brother in law to make a bracelet for my sister using a ruby he had purchased for her several months ago. I have been getting all my colored stones from Tim Roark Imports and Tim and Melinda provided me with a pair of rubys to match the large center stone so I ended up with the 6mm center with 4mm on the sides. This was the first in the Nadia series of bracelets to include stones. I used 22K gold for the accents, overlaying onto the sterling bracelet and putting two large solid beads of 22K on the ends.

I never like to make one piece at a time so while I made this bracelet I also started another but used 18K on it. I am awaiting stones from Roark, probably I will have to go with ruby, I just loved what happened with the first one. The next bracelet will be a bit different than this one and I’ll post it when I get it done.

Sterling , 22K gold and ruby bracelet by Sam Patania

I also finished the last of the Landers bracelets and do not expect to ever have such large Landers to work with again in my life. Setting those stones was nerve wracking because a replacement stone would never be available. Diamonds, rubys and sapphire can all be got, you may have to pay allot but they are available, Landers turquoise is no longer being mined because the vein is played out, no more exists in the ground.

Sterling and Landers turquoise bracelet by Sam Patania

It was a privilege to work with this turquoise.

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I have not been posting much this summer, I have been working though and will attempt to catch up with this post. I have been mostly working in silver and just a little in gold. I have been looking at Marbeth Schon’s books ,”Modernist Jewelry” and “Form and Function” for inspiration. I have also been looking at Spratling’s work, which along with my family’s work are my main influences over the years.

I recently was getting jealous of Spratling’s use of Mexican motifs, I as a middle age white man , don’t feel any cultural attachment to any design motifs. I figure after a couple generations of a family in the US culture is washed away. My culture is McDonald’s and Circle K. I never felt that I could use Native American or Mexican designs in my work and feel like it was original. Both of these influences were and are ever present in my life, being located in Tucson. I love both of those influences but never could bring myself to call them my own. I have done lots of work which could easily be mistaken for Native American and maybe even Mexican but, in my art work, my one of pieces,  I shy away from doing that. I would never make a Man in the Maze, it just isn’t my culture and I am hung up on that.

Spratling, was of course, an Anglo who moved to and worked in Mexico so he couldn’t claim a cultural kinship with many of his designs either, in my mind, but employed Mexican workers and lived down there. Those reasons and the fact that he was a pioneer in the Mexican jewelry industry give him a credibility that I lack for the use of those design motifs. But I Love his work and want to use the distillation of design that I see in Aztec work. So in the pictures that follow and in the near future I think these influences will creep into my work. The upside of having no culture is that I am free to let what ever I want influence me and don’t have any cultural restrictions. As you may be able to tell, I grew up with out the internet and the instant availability of information, things in my mind move a bit slower than all that.

One wonderful thing that has happened to me this summer is that Marbeth Schon has decided to represent me in her gallery. Her location address is available on my About Patania page and her web link is; www.mschon.com. I am very proud to be included in Marbeth’s gallery and thank her very much.

Sam Patania

Some of the bracelets shown in this photo are very much influenced by Thunderbird design, from my grandfather’s and dad’s workshops, and some has the aforementioned Mexican influence.

Rio Plata bracelet by Sam Patania

This is a close up of one of the pieces, in sterling with 18K gold accents.

Rio Plata bracelets by Sam Patania

The one in the fore ground has amethyst cabs ( 6mm) sterling and 18K gold accents on a sterling bracelet, the background one is all sterling. These both have half spheres bezel set on them.

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I was given a chance by friend/patron Lona Bjornsen to make a bracelet in platinum of a design I have just recently made. I have always loved platinum but since I work on speculation alot and purchase my materials myself I am not able to afford it. I work on spec. for my own art work since I cannot draw worth a damn and am unable to design other than in metal. I sometimes get work from people where they trust me enough to let me work and give me basic descriptions of what they are interested in. This takes a lot of trust and clients who want my art work. I had my first complete failure in this department where I just got the whole idea of what the client wanted wrong just recently. This was on my dime so they were not out any money and they want me to try again. I will for more expensive projects work in silver to make a model so that the client and I are on the same page before I work in gold or platinum. This helps me work out the engineering as well and makes costing the project out much easier.

Bracelet by Sam Patania 2009

I have made a few of these bracelets all with different ends. Lona wanted one in platinum so I ordered a bar of platinum 6*6 mm square. This was a heavy piece of material, unbelievable. It was such a wonderful opportunity to work with that much plat. but it made me nervous so I made a silver model the exact size she requested.

Bracelets by Sam Patania, 2009

These bracelets are made by filing away what I don’t want and few artists get to work platinum this way, most platinum work is done to conserve material, hollowing out heavy areas and making it thin. This design is not made that way, I designed this to move and flow like forged work but not be forged. I never dreamed this would be done in platinum so I didn’t design it to be light. To cast this design would be to take the heart out of it, solid fabricated work has a living feeling to it.

Thank you to Lona, I hope you enjoy this piece.

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Last year a long time client, Skip Crouse, became interested in writing a book about my family and our work. Skip grew up in Tucson and has known of my family for many years. After discussing the book idea with me he decided to come to Tucson from his home in New Hampshire and take a look at our archives and get an idea of the scope of the project. He talked to Lona Bjornsen and Mark Bahti who had different takes on my family’s work and started to learn the technology necessary to catalog the various forms of information which have been produced over the years about my family. Skip came to Tucson this spring on another collecting trip and formally met my father and hung out with me while he went through more archives. Skip had enough time to share with me some of the good food we have here in Tucson. I took him to my current favorite Mexican food place,  El Molcajete, as well as the taco stand outside of Food City on 22nd St. for some wonderful lunches. I don’t go for expensive food.

Skip says he is researching a book about the Patania family history in jewelry and the Thunderbird Shop tradition. My grandfather named his store the Thunderbird Curios when he first opened on the Plaza in Santa Fe in 1927. He then opened a branch in Tucson in 1937 and the store evolved into the Thunderbird Shop. Skip, my father and I spent a couple hours together which was very interesting to me. I am learning family history from this process which I didn’t know. My father is having to research information about his father and is learning new things too. Skip has become a good friend during this process and I look forward to more talks with him and my dad.

Spring

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Friend, patron and mentor Lona Bjornsen commissioned a bracelet using a huge piece of Landers turquoise in a style made popular by my grandfather. She wanted the bracelet to be my own and not a copy of my grandfather’s work.  I loved that challenge. I feel that I was able to keep in the parameters she asked for and stretch them enough to really please myself.

Working with an expensive piece of turquoise like Landers is nerve wracking just like setting a large diamond. The thing about a diamond is that it could be replaced much easier than a piece of Landers. One more thing about this turquoise is that it is much larger than any other piece of Landers I have ever worked with. It could never be replaced and I found the nerves coming up when I set it. It is a nice thick piece of stone so that was not the concern, it’s just that any stone can break during setting.

Bracelet by Sam Patania

I have been granted more patience in my craft by who ever grants such stuff and am enjoying more detailed work. I made the round elements or charms with different stamps that I have from previous family generations, all made in the Patania studios. Some of the charms have round edges and some have scalloped. Each is unique. I cut out the bracelet’s back so that the charms would seat and stamped the bottom of those charms so that from underneath they are visible.

Inside of Landers Charm bracelet

This bracelet is a nice heavy weight, 164 grams finished.

Side view Landers Charm bracelet

This piece took me longer than I thought it would because I needed to engineer it on the fly. It is hard to judge how much room , visually, that I will have when the bracelet is bent. A flat drawing cannot tell you how much space you will end up with. Lona is very generous and asked that I make it how it needed to be made and not stuck to a design I had drawn. If there was one thing I could wish into existence it would be the ability to draw better, or at all. But, I have stopped struggling about my drawing and accept that I am a 3-d thinker.

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I have been making pieces that are all metal, no stones, and depend on design alone to make them interesting to me. I have many influences which I have already written about for this type of work and I just received two books from Marbeth Schon, “Form and Function, American Modernist Jewelry 1940-1970″ and “Modernist Jewelry, 1930-1960, The Wearable Art Movement” which are going to be right down my alley as far as influence on my work. Marbeth is also going to carry some of my pieces in her gallery which is a big boost to me, I am very happy about the opportunity to be seen in her collection of artists.

Bracelets by Sam Patania, 2009

These two bracelets are all sterling silver, pierced sheet with domes added. I have taken a photography tutorial and have started to take my photographs on a reflective surface so that they can be seen from two angles at once. In the reflection  you can see the three dimensional aspect of these two pieces as well as the pierced areas.

I enjoyed these pieces so much and I hope to continue making pieces like this which seem to be a new direction for me. I would like to add stones, I think geometric faceted stones sets as well as calibrated cabs would fit well with these designs. Gold and silver combinations as well. I currently have a commission from a patron to make one of the ZigZag ( silver and gold)  bracelets which I posted about last time in platinum and 18K gold. Working with platinum like that is an amazing opportunity for me, I’ll post about it when I’m done.

I named these two bracelets Rio Plata ( 1 and 2) as a nod to the Mexican influence which I live in. I love my work.

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Bracelet in Sterling Silver and 18K Gold

And I really love those materials but, I kept looking at these books and understood that design drove these artists and felt I was somehow missing that in my work. I thought that I should do this and that to make my work more design and less materials. I didn’t work, I can’t make myself do things like that. I am not in control of my creativity, I really am not. I loved making this bracelet, I want one myself but I made this one in a woman’s size, damn it. I find it hard to make myself anything, I have little patience for that.

Anyway, if you want to see my influences, check out those books.  I made a sister piece to this since, as I have posted before, hate to make one of anything. I’ll post that bracelet next week when I finish it it’s sitting in the liver of sulphur solution right now, otherwise known as stink water.

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It’s been a while since I posted since I was caught up in the Tucson Gem Show. I have been enjoying the show like I do every year and getting behind in my work and catching up with my work. Now I have some breathing room I can post some of the work I have been doing.

The gem shows ( there are 30 plus shows at venues all around Tucson)  are wonderful to see what is going on in the market in my industry. I get to see many friends who come to town for the shows and the tool trade shows are amazing for a tool junkie like me.  Rio Grande puts on a great show as does Stuller and Otto Frei. I get to see and handle all the tools they bring. My favorite gem supplier comes also, Tim Roark who got my loyalty when I saw him set up at the SNAG conference.

I have had two commissions both to duplicate previous generations of Patania’s work. Frank Patania and Frank Patania Jr, my father and grandfather, were and are very strong designers and their work has become very collectible and getting scarce. I am asked to duplicate their designs on a regular basis. I still have turquoise they bought so I can offer that to clients and in one case I had silver elements of my grandfather’s to incorporate into the work.

I find this work very challenging since I find myself trying to think like they thought when they were making the original pieces. My own techniques and ideas creep into this type of work though and I look at them like they are wrong. These clients are asking for duplicates of work, not my ideas. It’s tough sometimes but I am so grateful for the work. I get to use materials I love, silver and turquoise and learn how they thought through their work. Interesting.

Necklace and Bracelet by Sam Patania

The necklace and bracelet set were the first pieces I completed this past week. I had been working on it for a week when the gem show hit. I would work on it a few hours aday during the show as well as the next peice pictured.

Bracelet by Sam Patania

 This bracelet is a variation of a design my father made in the 1960’s He called it Bits-O-Silver so I continue calling it that. I used Bisbee turquoise I bought from Bruce Mead in this piece and Persian turquoise int he necklace and bracelet above. The Persian was turquoise my grand father bought in the 1950’s.

Thanks to Orchid for the many friends I have who come to Tucson each year and for the opportunity to meet more people in my industry. Robin Hawke, Dave Arens and Kevin Potter deserve special mention this year. I love Orchid.

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Box by Sam Patania

Box by Sam Patania

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