Necklace and Bracelet in Sterling and Branch Coral

My kids and I had the great fortune to spend some of the past summer in San Carlos, Mexico. We snorkeled almost every day in the Sea of Cortez which is a rich body of water. We saw more sea life than I have ever seen outside of an aquarium. I have always wanted to use sea life motifs in my work but have not been able to make them mine in any substantive way. I just realized this morning that the three branch coral necklaces I have made fulfill this desire of mine and I didn’t even know it. The last necklace and bracelet set I made with branch coral I named “Coral Sea” and this one is named “Coral Reef”. I had always assumed that I would make star fish and different fishes in some way and that would be what I was after but my work is never realistic. If my work is figurative it is very abstract. This series is no different.

Dick Barber made the bezels for this necklace just as he had for the previous one. When I posted about the last necklace,” Coral Sea” I had decided to try and make this next piece more like a collar and have a less important center. That idea and Dick’s bezels were how I started this piece.

I soldered stems onto the bezels and then the project sat for at least a week while I did other things. When I started back on this piece I immediately began to texture one side of the stems and then twisting them around on my JumpRinger mandrels. I then began joining them together in a more linear way than the two previous pieces.  I finished it off with the forged and tapered bead wires which look to me like something that would grow in the sea.

The chain that I completed the necklace with was a completely new idea for me and again, I couldn’t have predicted how it would turn out. I love this chain so much I want to make a gold chain like it with gem stones sprinkled around it. It would also work very well in sterling since sterling will patina so nicely and give such nice contrast. Maybe 3 chains, one all gold, one gold and silver and one all silver? Each with different stones. I’ll have to get working on that. I have a couple of silver and turquoise fish bracelets on deck right now.

The bracelet for this set was made just like the necklace except it has a central heavy support which the bezel elements are wrapped around. The bracelet is impossible to photograph, it is too three dimensional. In both the bracelet and necklace I tried to put some of the coral under some of the silver elements so it had a depth. As if you were looking through a kelp forest or other sea life to see things behind.

This piece will be on display for The Drawing Studio and the Tucson Jewish Community Center for about a month starting in mid November and running through mid December. It will still be available while on display but has to stay in the display until the finish of the show. If you are interested pleas contact me directly, see my ” About Patania” page for contact information. After the JCC show it will most likely be available through Bahti’s, www.bahti.com. Mark Bahti sold the “Coral Sea” very quickly for me, thank you Mark.