Colleen Williams/Local Texture, North Adams, MA
I first began making jewelry while apprenticing in an architectural office, after college. I was living in the home of a friend whose mother was trying to restart her pottery business. Each day after work, I would go in her garage studio and play around with the clay and do what I knew best to do—making marks in the clay with notation-like symbols, much like that of a floor plan on a blueprint.
That was a long time ago, though with each successive year, my creations became more patterned and the motifs were more tightly arranged. I began wholesaling my jewelry in American Craft Council and the Rosen Group events for a couple of years until I realized that the large volume of orders was too difficult for one artist to produce such a labor intensive product. Instead, I concentrated on juried art festivals that combined my love of travel and afforded me the ability to create truly one-of-a-kind pieces without the pressure of replication.
For more than fifteen years, my jewelry has evolved into a line of wearable art, collected by women nationwide. Having a fondness for pattern, I use symbols, universal or ethnic, to subtly convey a sense of place.
My process begins by layering a porcelain slab with layers of porcelain slip to create a colored background. On this slab, I razor-etch and hand-stamp an overall textural pattern using tiny, previously fired porcelain, motif stamps. From this decorated slab, I cut out my designs, drill holes, mold them to give the pieces a domed shape, sand the edges, allowing them to dry before high-firing them in an electric kiln.
The next step involves placing a colored glaze in each of the depressions left by the stamps (each motif is assigned a different color). After the firing for the glazes, I paint an iridescent overglaze luster over almost every glazed area. Finally, after that firing, I will further embellish the designs with a 22 KT gold luster and fire the pieces for the last time.
The pieces are a long time in the making, as the techniques are easy to learn but slow to perfect and require a lot of patience. A single bead-piece may only be finished for assembly after two weeks of layered techniques and firings. The finished artwork is always a delight for me to see and I’ve enjoyed almost every minute of it—okay, I don’t like the sanding.
Studio is located in the Historic Beaver Mill, North Adams, MA and is open to the public, by appointment.
View more work at www.localtexture.etsy.com
