by Sam Patania on January 20, 2009
Bracelet by Sam Patania
This beautiful coral was purchased from a friend Steve Booth, boothballoon@earthlink.net, a couple weeks ago. I bought enough to make two bracelets, one went to Mark Bahti right away, the other I still have in the studio. These bracelets are very complicated and exhausting to make.
Bracelet by Sam Patania
They have many layers and elements as well as the bezels. Dick Barber made the bezels for me, nice to have an apprentice. Then I spent many hours backing and finishing the bezels before I could start the bracelet itself. Once the bezels are done I make the frame the whole bracelet will be built on. I forged the frame for both of these bracelet out of 6 gage round wire. I used Argentium sterling through out except for the bezels themselves. Argentium allows me to weld areas so the later on in the construction it won’t fall apart while I am soldering.
Bracelet by Sam Patania
The bracelet at the top of this post is called Sea Creature and is the more complicated of the two, the bottom one is called Sea Life. Sea Creature has 13 corals while Sea Life has 11.
Setting these odd shaped stones is nerve wracking since if I break one I an stuck. With almost any other material another stone can be bought or cut to fit into the mount but these corals are each one of a kind. It would be difficult or impossible to replace one of the bezels if I broke a stone since coral is very heat sensitive. Cold connection could be done but would not be in keeping with the rest of the design. Thank God, I didn’t break a stone.
Bracelet by sam Patania
I will be taking a break from this design for a long while. I have made enough of them recently and started wanting to get back to gem stones. As I stated before I won’t be buying any more coral. I do have some stock which will be used over time but I don’t have any more branch coral. Unless my dad has some branch coral these will be the last I make in coral of this style. I will be happy to do remounts of coral. It’s odd to be writing that, I haven’t come up against any barriers to materials like this before but, I just can’t continue buying coral.
by Sam Patania on January 14, 2009
Coral in 18K by Sam Patania
I was contacted by a group called Too Precious To Wear who is trying to raise consciousness in the jewelry industry about saving coral. I have been watching the laws changing about the use of coral for some time. I found inconsistent information is all over the place. One set of information says that if I can be provided with documentation of the origin of the coral I would be alright in purchasing it. The documentation must be from a reputable coral dealer who buys legally harvested coral. The problem is what kind of documentation is necessary. Is an invoice good enough? who decides if my supplier has purchased and imported legally harvested coral? Game and Fish from each state has different ideas and the Feds have their own set of ideas.
I have a feeling that someone will be held up as an example and be prosecuted by what ever governmental body feels they want to. All it would take is a couple high profile prosecutions to stop coral from being used.
I have understood for a long time that the ocean’s coral reefs were being damaged which is cutting our own throats. Just like oil, how long do we humans think we can abuse this planet and continue to enjoy it? Money talks and if legally harvested coral is still allowed to be sold internationally then illegally harvested coral will blend in with the legal supply. I can see the complete ban of the sale of coral just like elephant ivory or tortoise shell being the only solution. Those bans, as far as I can tell, actually work. Someone would have to be a fool to use either of those materials for legal and moral reasons.
I told Too Precious To Wear that I would not purchase any more coral. I would use the stock my family has and when that runs out that will be the end of me using coral. I hate to say that, I know , right now, very well priced beautiful coral available. Damn. What temptation. Oh, well,now that I have publicly said what I just said I’m stuck and I know it. I have thought allot about these statements and will abide by them. Some money is too expensive to own.
by Sam Patania on January 13, 2009
Necklace by Sam Patania
I started this necklace when I made it’s sister necklace in azurite/malachite as a commission for Christmas. I like to make more than one piece at a time. I bought this Tyrone turquoise from my friend Bruce Mead a couple of months ago. Tyrone is not very common, it is from a copper producing area in Southwest New Mexico. It’s beautiful country. I have a friend who is a mining engineer who works for the mines there and I have asked him to ask around for turquoise but he won’t. Something about being professional.
I always have an eye out for American turquoise. Not that I’m a nationalist about minerals but, I got burned out by the mountains of Chinese turquoise I see every year at the Tucson Gem Show. Another material I can’t stand due to gem show burn out is fresh water pears. There is nothing special about the huge mounds of them I see at the show. Now I know most people don’t get to see all that and a strand here and there might seem interesting. I feel the appeal of them is purely price driven. They are not expensive. Chinese turquoise beads and cabs are so available and inexpensive ( I’m being kind) that I don’t want them. High quality Chinese turquoise is interesting to me. It is also harder to find, just like any interesting material.
I want to use materials that have a value to them. To me value is driven by scarcity. If everyone can have something them what value is it? Diamonds seem to be an exception, not only to me but the rest of the world. They have been so well marketed that demand has been high for many decades. I can,at any time of the day or night, call 10 different suppliers and get any diamond you can think of. If you called me to find Bisbee turquoise or Tyrone, I would have one person I can think of to call. If he doesn’t have any I don’t have another supplier to call.
The gem show is coming and I love the gem show, I have so much fun meeting people and old friends. I also get to shop the market and see new things. The big tool suppliers are also here, what more could I ask for? I do get new friends around gem show time, friends I won’t see again until the show comes. They all want to get into the parts of the show that only the trade can get in. Or they want me to tell them that the crap they bought is fantastic and can’t wait to tell me where they got it so I can also get some. One piece of advice for non trade folks going to the show, just because it is at the show doesn’t mean it is good. If you buy a ring for $5 then it is a $5 ring. I will charge you $20 to size it.
by Sam Patania on January 9, 2009
Sterling Buckle by Sam Patania
I was fortunate to be born into a family which makes jewelry and to have fallen in love with the work. There are many ways to learn the craft of jewelry, I was apprenticed to my father as he was to his father. All three generations have made many pieces which were not considered art work but which show pride in craftsmanship.
In my art work I often have no idea what the end product is going to be exactly. In a piece like the pictured buckle I have many examples to compare it to. My grandfather designed this buckle and I have no idea how many have been made over the past 60 years. I was taught by my dad and Dan Enos, both of whom had made many of these themselves, to cut initials and fabricate this buckle. Initial cutting is not creative work when the design was done 60 years ago. The challenge to make this buckle is to maintain the standards that the past generations have set. I don’t want to make this buckle which can be identified as mine, it has to be a continuation of a tradition.
This buckle has been ordered by a client to have their loved one’s initials on it but to be the same quality she has seen in the same buckle from past years. In that way it is no different that the other buckles with initials I have made. I have made buckles with the clients cattle brands and other symbols that I had no part in designing. As a craftsman I need to take the client’s ideas and turn it into jewelry. I really appreciate this work, I appreciate the trust people have in me to make high quality work with their symbols.
Pin by Sam Patania
This pin was commissioned to be in 18 karat gold and set with sapphire. The metal, stone and design all had important symbolism for the client. It was ordered on a deadline which didn’t allow me to communicate with the client very much but, he trusted I would be able to make a piece up to his standards. I love that. I really appreciate the amount if trust I encounter in this business with both clients and suppliers.
Sterling Buckle by Sam Patania
This buckle had the cattle brand of a local rancher. He was able to provide his own art work, all I had to do was make a vertical design into a horizontal buckle. I made the buckle out of heavy sterling to last generations. Many of the projects I am commissioned to work on only require I be able to work out the engineering of the piece and turn a client’s ideas into jewelry.
by Sam Patania on January 8, 2009
Bracelets by Sam Patania
The Patania Collection are pieces I make which are classic best sellers. I have the Collection available for retail and wholesale. I have drawn on over 80 years of my family’s designs to make the Collection and adapted the designs to keep the pricing affordable.
The Maria bracelet is a design I made myself a couple of years ago when I was experimenting with my Bonny Doon press. I had just received the old style doming tool set from Lee Marshal and was pushing it to the limit. Some designs can be made with the old doming set that the new one can’t make and the new set created another opportunity to make designs the old one would not allow.
The Maria design is made by forging wire to make the outline of the design then soldering the wire onto a back. The bracelet is then formed in the concave forming tool to push the back through the front. Forming this way gives a repousse’ feel to the bracelet but forming this way is much more consistent and quicker than repousse’. The urethane in the Bonny Doon gives me the ability to produce this kind of work and keep my prices affordable.
I make several variations of the Maria bracelet, three of which are shown. I add turquoise to some, in the picture I have used Bisbee turquoise in two and left the third plain. I also chiseled the central oval wire on one of them to make a rope design. I have many ideas for this design to make them individual and want to make one in 18K gold. I have also made a smaller version of the Maria where I use narrower wire which produces a more delicate bracelet.
I love experimenting with the tools I have. My Bonny Doon hydraulic press is still my favorite tool and I have lots of ideas to make new designs for one of art pieces as well as my Collection work.
by Sam Patania on January 7, 2009
Pendant by Sam Patania
This pendant was made for the same client that I wrote about yesterday. I made it last year, 2007, when her husband came in to commission a piece for her Christmas present. She has received my work as her Christmas gift for many years. She knows my work is coming but she never knows what, exactly.
The Christmas tree idea came to me when he was thinking out loud to me about a Christmas pendant. I have made other thematic work for him so his requirements were a piece she would wear every year for the Christmas holiday. Her holiday signature piece. I had never sold this client anything but turquoise, it became almost a joke. He and his wife have other places they went to for diamonds and colored stones. Like my family’s work, they had preferences and allegiances for different types of work. They come to me for specific reasons and that suits me fine. I stopped trying to be everything to every one a while ago. It is too hard for a business to run that way. I have my specialties and I refer to other businesses and craftspersons for other styles of work.
Often clients will stretch me to do things that I normally wouldn’t do , like this pendant. But the design was my idea. I like to push myself in the craft so I do uncharacteristic pieces despite being told for years about having a “point of view” which can be identified with me as an artist. I think that kind of thinking is good for sales and future collectibility but it always seems stifling to me as an artist. I think at this point in my career I have a point of view but that point of view must change over time, I just don’t know how much time the market needs to catch up with me. I don’t worry about it much at all, I do have galleries which sell one type of my work better than other types. So it goes.
I also got to sell him colored stones. I set the tree with ruby, sapphire, pearl and even a diamond. The presents were made of turquoise, lapis and coral. I made the mounts for the inlayed presents and inlayed the stone from the back after all the soldering was finished.
by Sam Patania on January 6, 2009
Pendant and Earrings by Sam Patania
The ‘08 holiday season is over, I enjoyed it with family and friends. Back to reality with inventory and year end bookkeeping. I ended up with a new computer which is nice and something to learn. Faster computers are always nice.
I was commissioned to make a piece of jewelry ,as I have been for many years, by a client whose wife has been buying my family’s jewelry since the 1940’s She told me the story of going into my grandfather’s Tucson shop at 19 West Congress and buying a concha belt on lay-a-way. The belt cost her $50 back then. That same belt would go for around $2,000. She made payments of $5 a month.
This client loves Sleeping Beauty turquoise, the clear material. I have been getting Sleeping Beauty from R.H. and Company in Glendale, CA for many years. My father has been dealing with R.H. since the 1960’s.Clear Sleeping Beauty looks like plastic to some people. It has been prized in Europe and the east coast of the US but, to us westerners it is hard to believe for it’s clarity. I have loved using it in yellow gold with faceted stones for an east coast look.
My client’s husband , who is the one I deal with on an annual basis, enjoys being a large part of the design process. If I didn’t love these people so much I would not enjoy such input. But I do love these people so I listen to his ideas and try to draw them and make samples to see if we are on the same page. He wanted what to me looked like a flower or star burst design with an oval Sleeping Beauty in the center with matching earrings. My design/engineering idea was to put the round solid bead elements between the ray elements, to visually tie the rays together and provide strength to the piece.
I haven’t heard form the recipient yet, she will usually call me and tell me how she feels about the pieces her husband and I made. I expect her to call soon. She always loves what we come up with and wears them often.
by Sam Patania on December 29, 2008
Pendant by Sam Patania
I had a man come into my studio who wanted a pendant for his infant son similar to the name pendants seen in this area on Chicas. Last year his daughter got her name pendant and he wanted his son to have his own. His wife had died not too long ago leaving him and their three small children and he felt the need to have something to hand down to his kids. Possibly to commemorate their mom or as a symbol of some permanence in this world. Jewelry is the perfect medium for this. I love being able to help this way, I feel art is important but the degree I felt this for this man was more than usual.
His son’s name is Xavier and he is very young. He will not be able to wear this on his own for years. He will be able to wear it for family pictures and that is what the client wanted. The “X” pattern for this was easy to see. The client wanted a diamond in the center.
I lived in Iran for a year when I was a teenager. I saw Islamic art every day while there. I thought of the constraints of only making art for Allah as suffocating and it wasn’t for years that I realized the constraints were not constraints. The need to produce art only for God, to include only Biblical stories and no other were liberating. It was only my limited vision that saw this as suffocating. My change in attitude was all I needed to accept the limitless possibilities for this type of art. I do not produce my art with such constraints, as I saw it. But, I have many constraints that I deal with every day, price, sales and time to name the biggest.
When I get a client who wants something very specific like this I used to feel constrained. Now I try to see all my possibilities in every job. This job offered personal possibilities as well as possibilities in my craft or art. So I started with the “X” , I cut it out as I have cut out thousands of initials over the years. But I cut it thick, 14 gage sterling. I was going to flush mount the diamond in the center but half way through the mounting I realized I didn’t want to set the stone that way. I made an 18K mount for the stone and soldered it on and set the stone. The client and I had discussed how we wanted the chain to be attached, neither of us wanted it to just hang from the center. We both wanted it to follow the arms of the “X” upward around the neck. The engineering for this was new for me, I had to invent my way of getting this done.
I had fun making this piece and it meant something to the client and me. That is what I want my job to be as much as possible.
by Sam Patania on December 24, 2008
Necklace by Sam Patania
Christmas 2008 got busy and I was in the studio late for the past week and a half. I’m tired and the studio is a mess and I’m more behind in paper work than usual but, it was a good season.
This necklace was a commission based on the piece in the same materials which I posted about a few weeks ago. I decided while I was making this one I should make two, the second one in turquoise. The turquoise one remains unfinished and after I finish I will post about it. These necklaces were such fun to make, I lost track of time while making them so staying late was not even noticed. The dogs didn’t get exercised much in the past weeks but Kilo got to the dog park this morning.
The goal of this necklace was to make a new style using forging to formthe silver and have it flow around the stones. While I was making this I named it a couple of things but my favorite name was ” less than perfect”. That was my favorite because I was not trying for symmetry or finish which is most important in many of my pieces. I wanted the forging left rough, hammer and tool marks were left in. The stones dictated the final shape and they were not symmetrical but not strictly free form either. They had the shapes I would put in a necklace to maintain the visual weight of a necklace but didn’t match in shape with each other. Because the stones didn’t match each other the silver doesn’t match right to left. This is the effect I was after.
The other name I had for this work was “Hippy Haute” where I thought of the final shapes as if they were taken off the posters of rock groups in San Francisco in the 1960’s. Definitely hand made with heart.
The stones in this piece are some of the azurite/malachite I bought from Bruce Mead this past year. It is such beautiful stone, the center stone has no malachite in it which it unusual. I love azurite blue and was able to pick a set out of my stash. Picking sets of this stone is very difficult. I put a sapphire cab in the center of the piece, I had 2 cabs left over from my Sapphire Flowers project ( southwesternjewelry.net) .
One of these days I want to make one of these necklaces in 18K gold. It’s hard to use gold in such a free manner just due to the cost. These necklaces are so free form I could never draw one out prior to making it, I have no way on knowing how they will turn out. Each one is very experimental and , for instance, the use of the sapphire in this piece was something I thought of half way through making it. I had made the central silver piece and thought a sapphire would look really nice there so I was wheeling across my studio to my desk and there were the two sapphire cabs sitting there.
by Sam Patania on December 16, 2008
Tourmaline cut by Jeff Graham
Tucson is a gem capital of the world because we host the largest gem show in the world on an annual basis. The Tucson Gem Show is actually about 30 gem shows put on by different organizations during the last week of January through the first two weeks in February. Every hotel room is full during this time, rental cars are brought in from all over the Southwest and huge tents are built to house the shows. Companies like Rio Grande have trade shows during this time so get to see all the newest tools. New gem stone finds are featured and anyone who cuts gems will either come to sell here or compete in the cutting competition put on by the AGTA. Many shows welcome any one to come in and the high powered shows are trade only. It’s like the carnival for me every year. Orchid has had a fund raising dinner during this time for many years so I get to meet many of the people whose posts I read every day.
I met Jeff Graham ( www.faceters.com )sometime around 1998. Jeff taught me how to distinguish good gem cutting from bad. He has taught me what good gem rough should look like and what to look for in gem stones. Jeff came to my studio last week and brought with him several stones for me to look at. The tourmaline shown above was my favorite, the green and blue colors in this stone stuck in my mind. This happens during the gem show as well. The color center of my brain becomes so stimulated by all the gems that stop lights become , citrines and emeralds. Everyday colors become brilliant for several hours after I leave a venue. I love that.
Rubelite Tourmaline cut by Jeff Graham
I wanted to share some of the things that inspire me. My market has been turquoise for some time which is great since I love turquoise. Jeff’s visit reminded me that there is a whole world of gems to play with. I would liketo put many of these stones in white metal so I will work in Argentium sterling. Gem stones in silver is a great combination but the tendency is to save the top stones for gold or platinum, I have that prejudice myself. Argentium will not tarnish under these stones and is a much warmer metal to work with than nickle white golds. Silver allows me to be more experimental with the metal as well since price is much more reasonable than gold.
I will post these pieces as I make them, if you are interested in commissioning this work please see my contact information on my “About Patania” page.
