Turquoise Mum Clusters - Changing Hues

Materials: copper, silver, enamel, aquamarine, glass beads
Dimensions: largest element is 4"X2"X1/2", length is 16"

cut and pierced copper mum forms are enameled and set into silver and copper bezels, leaves are etched. Peyote stitched glass bead chain by Ann Baddley Keister

Photo credit: Serena Nancarrow

Patricia Nelson
Ball State University
Muncie, Indiana. USA

My work has always reflected my interests in color, pattern, the history of art and design, and the incredible complex forms found in the natural world. I have an abiding fascination with Japanese design, which began with my love of pattern and the sensitive placement of elements. I study the work produced by the Wiener Werkstatte, especially Josef Hoffman as it offers an organizational strategy for combining multiple colors, patterns and materials. I base my forms around geometry-- from squares, circles and triangles to more complex polygons--and the geometry creates a sense of order that dictates the subsequent ornamentation. I see my work as the gestation and transformation of historic images and motifs which develop into work that is contemporary yet ageless.


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.