By Cecilia Skemp
July 10, 2025
The assignment was to make a cold connect piece. This was my first metal working project and I made the avocado out of Brass and copper scraps. The copper piece was textures with a small hammer and also shaped to give a rounded effect for the pit.
In this project I learned to make jumprings and solder chains individually by hand. It takes a lot of patience and focus. I also used a low heat patina to give a multicolored effect on the copper.
I made this bezel ring for a friend. It was very interesting and the first somewhat complicated project we worked on. I purposefully made the bezel cup a little taller as my friend seemed to prefer rings with deeper set stones. The ring fit her very well.
This is a cast figure. I originally sculpted the figure out of wax, individually shaping and texturing the petals before arranging them around a “bud” which I also sculpted from wax. I casted my wax figure in plaster and aided my professor in shooting the bronze by melting the metal while she took over the actual shooting part, given how dangerous it is for novices.
For my final project I designed this hairpin for my mother. The hairpin is inspired by Tang Dynasty buyao, which is a type of hairpin literally translating to “swaying step” as the ornaments on the pin sway as one walks. I achieved this aspect by creating small chains (as small as I could feasibly manage with the scrap wires in class) featuring to hand crafted brass leaves. Each part of this hair pin was cut, shaped, etched, and assembled from scrath using scrap brass. I nicknamed it the “Ama Nu’er Buyao” loosely translating to “Mother-Daughter Hairpin.” One flower represents my mother while the other represents me.
