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Connie Brauer: Painted Jewels
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11471 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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10 / 1986 |
1,694 Words |
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Ettagale Blauer
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Artists who bring their visions into reality through the medium of jewelry continue a tradition that can be traced back to earliest recorded history. Enameling is one of the techniques that was practiced by the ancient Egyptians. It is an unusually demanding technique and remains as much an example of individual effort as it was 4,000 years ago. As with many jewelry methods, the basic idea has not changed over the millennia; with the exception of modern kilns, which offer constant sources of power and accurately measured temperatures, the artist of ancient Egypt would find himself very much at home in the workshop of one of today's supreme enamellists, Connie Brauer.
Enameling is simple to describe and indescribably difficult to do well. It consists of the application of molten glass to metal to create designs. As with any art dependent on the material undergoing a metamorphosis with the application of heat, there is an element of wonder in this work, a kinship with the alchemist hoping to change lead into gold. The analogy is more than fanciful, as these enamel colors do contain lead and arsenic and are turned into works of magical beauty, if not gold.
All enameling may be defined by four basic techniques; cloisonné, champleve, plique-a-jour, and the transparents, basse taille and grisaille. These French names have no counterparts in English and are the only terms used to differentiate the techniques. Sharing the basic idea of combining molten glass and metal, the four differ in the relationship of the color to the metal base.
Cloisonné is by far the best known and essentially the only enameling technique used today. It is the medium of choice for Connie Brauer "because it is the most versatile of the methods.' It allows the creation, in hard materials, of an intricate design. Virtually anything the artist can draw can be re-created in cloisonné, provided of course the skills are present. Cloisonné comes from the French word cloison, meaning 'cell'. Each cell is a pool of color, created by twisting a fine gold or fine silver wire into a shape emulating the line of the original drawing. The enamel is applied within the outlines of the cells and when fired, all the tiny cells together create the design. Each time a layer of color is added, the piece is fired in the kiln. The color consists of glass powder and the finished jewel is essentially a piece of glass backed with metal. The use of pure gold or silver, rather than fourteen-or eighteen-karat gold or any alloyed silver is crucial to success since in heating, alloys react at different temperatures and this would interfere with the fusing of the grains of color into the enamel surface.
Champleve consists of a metal plate into which tiny pits are carved to contain the enamel colors. Here, the color is applied until it reaches the surface of the metal. There is much more metal in evidence than in cloisonné, in which the tiny wires separating the colors are barely visible. The presence of the metal in champleve is as important to the design as is the enamel.
Plique-a-jour offers the most delicate appearance of the basic enamel techniques. The idea is identical to that of a stained glass window with metal separating the colors, but without a metal backing. Light shines right through the enamels. The jeweler creates a filigree pattern of wires which is soldered onto a base metal plate. After the enameling is created in a method similar to cloisonné, this back-up
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