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Wesavi Jewelry

not the usual

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I have enrolled on the Masters Registry, the premier, international accreditation system for metal clay.

As part of my own record keeping and perhaps to encourage others to consider this journey, I am writing a blog. 

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I got into jewelery making very recently and quite by accident. As most things that happen by accident it was one of the best things that I have been involved in in a very long time.

I am in the lucky position that my husband collects cut precious and semi-precious stones. Although I had some of them set by our jeweler, it simply became too expensive to indulge in that on a regular basis. In addition I love the vibrant colors and some of the unusual shapes of the stones and was envisaging more outrageous (and even more expensive) pieces. It was my jeweler himself who suggested I should look into Silver Metal Clay and try and create my own jewelery. I was lucky to find a Senior Instructor very near by and so my wonderful journey into jewelery making began.

I had never heard of Metal Clay before and was immediately taken by the seeming "magic" of transforming "clay"  into fine silver (.999). In reality the "clay" is not clay at all but consists of fine silver particles combined with an organic binder and water . The resulting compound feels and behaves a lot like clay, but is in fact a totally different material to potters clay. Like clay however it needs to be fired at very high temperatures to burn the organic binder off and pure silver remains.
The metal clay can be formed, squeezed, rolled, pressed, painted or handled in any other way you can think of. The possibilities that this medium offers are amazing and seemingly endless and only your own imagination sets the limit. However, most natural stones can not be used in basic silver clay work, as they can not tolerate the immense heat required for firing the silver and "turning it" into metal.

This forced me to look into Mixed Media work early on, to give me options with the stones I want to work with. If it is possible, Mixed Media work has blown the horizon open even more with options and possibilities, and I am thoroughly enjoying testing and playing with combinations that can be used with Metal Clay.