Why I love enameling

I took my first enameling class back in the fall of 2005 at The Hartsbrook School where I was teaching at the time. While the piece I was working on at that time (my first piece, shown here) was cooling, my teacher, Margaret Langdell, pointed me towards the work of a number of current master enamelists. The one that struck me the most was Larissa Podgoretz. She does Limoge, or painted, enameling, which differs from the cloisonné work we do in that it does not use any wires and is just painted.

"Just painted" is unfair. Larissa's work is spectacular. It would be hard enough to paint what she does with watercolors, oils, or whatever, but to do it with grains of glass that get melted in fine layers in a kiln is mind boggling. I will never do work like Larissa's but I still find it incredibly inspiring.

One of the reasons I will never do work like hers is that I love doing cloisonné work. Many of the other students I have taken classes with think I'm nuts, but I love the wire work. I love sitting with my tweezers and scissors and making a sketch become a set of chambers.

All this has come to mind because I spent an hour yesterday bending the wire's for Chris's monkey piece. While I usually work in silver, this piece is going to be in gold. Now that the wires are bent, I will be able to set them into the piece this afternoon at the studio.

The closed ends of the branch actually hang over the edge of the blank and will be trimmed off later. I had to bend them that way so that they will stand up throughout the enameling process.

At the studio today, I also will be working on Meredith's earrings and a pair of earrings for my mom. Hopefully it'll be one of those days in which everything comes together and works out, rather than one of those days in which you can spend hours and hours getting nothing done.

-M