Quadrati Pin - Changing Hues

Materials: Champleve enamel and sterling silver
Dimensions: 1.8in H x 1.4in W x 0.08in D

This pin is hand fabricated and then cast in sterling silver. The enamel is inlaid and fired several times in a kiln, building up multiple fine layers to achieve a rich coloration. After firing is complete, the enamel is ground off of the exposed silver surfaces. The sterling is oxidized, steel brushed and rubbed with pumice and the enamel is etched to a matte finish.

Carly Wright
carlywright.com
Berne, NY. USA

My jewelry is inspired by the natural world. I am fascinated by cliffs revealing layers of sedimentary rock. I believe that the images that I see on my daily walks, give me a vocabulary. I often stop to sketch, or pick up a stone or a piece of bark. These small objects sit on my drawing table for weeks, sometimes years. When I sit down to design new pieces I look to them for inspiration, and try to convey something of what I see in them to others. I am also drawn to architectural symbols such as windows or doors.

The creation of art begins for me as a journey into a intuitive and playful part of myself. I strive to remain open to the creative process and let the pieces that I make come through me. To some degree I will influence this creation with the experience I have as a designer and perhaps more importantly through my experiences of being alive. My sketches are loose, fluid, fast, using drafting and colored pencils. Often these sketches also sit unused for many weeks until I am ready to hone the designs to working drawings.

It is the second phase of the process where I look for the beautiful line, and the design elements that I find interesting. My work is often described as painterly. I don't feel that I am a jewelry designer more than I am an artist working on a very small scale with materials I fell in love with at age nineteen.

I saw my first enamels at a local craft fair some 26 years ago and was inspired to purchase a kiln and sign up for a class. My quest for knowledge took me to Buffalo to study with renowned enamelist Bill Helwig, and on to an apprenticeship with Philadelphia jeweler Barbara Mail.

I attended Empire State College, a university without walls program associated with the State University of New York System. Through this program I was able to concentrate in the study of my chosen media of enameling, and earned a BPA ( the equivalent of a BFA) degree in 1978. I continued my study at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina where I was a scholarship student from 1980-84. Carly Wright lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children.


The exhibition explores metal works whose primary theme is color embraced as their primary visual focus, whether that be using colored materials, exploring creating colored surfaces, or encasing the object in color.

As the world's largest jewelry related internet site, Ganoksin strives to develop exhibitions showcasing work from around the world. This exhibition was open to all metalsmiths, professional and amateur, advanced and beginner.

In total 303 artists contributed 814 show pieces for the permanent online exhibition.

The exhibition was curated by Beth Wicker, President of the North Carolina Society of Goldsmiths in the United States, and Adjunct Instructor at Northeastern Technical College in South Carolina. Director of the exhibition is Hanuman Aspler, founder of The Ganoksin Project, the world's largest internet jewelry site.

Hue is one of the primary properties of color, it refers to the place the color occupies on the visual spectrum. Humans have used hues throughout time, to create cave paintings, to decorate themselves, their clothing and their housing.

Different hues have taken on different meanings throughout time. Gold traditionally has been a color of purity - the metal gold is relatively unchangeable, and the hue of gold has come to stand for gods and goddesses, for royalty, for durability and for purity. Red has often meant love, or passion. Hues often reflect the meaning of the seasons, with pastels referring to spring and the burst of new life after the pale hues of winter. Summer is reflected in vibrant, deep hues, followed by the browning of hues in the fall as plants go to seed and die, and the land turns fallow.

The worth of a hue has often been tied to what is necessary to make the pigment that creates the hue, and the expensive involved in the process. Often created from crushed stones that had to be mined and carried by caravan over thousands of miles, or from fermented roots of plants only grown in certain areas, or the carapaces of rare insects - the creation of hue in a way that could be used by man was an involved and generally expensive process.

In today's world metalsmiths have access to perhaps the widest range of materials and hues in the history of man - and in some of the most affordable ways ever.

This exhibition celebrates hue - color - as an integral, inherent element of the work. We talk of the "richness" of color, and examples of this abound here. One expects hues from the colors of gemstones used in metalsmithing, but we also have hues from some less expected places. Glass enamels are an ancient way of adding color, as are a variety of patinas. Today's artists also use synthetic man-made materials to add color in ways that didn't exist a century ago.

We invite you to enjoy this celebration of hue, and the ways hues and their use have changed over time.