Metal House Jewelry Box
This was the first part of a three part project for my metals and jewelry class. The assignment was to create a setting for a story that we would slowly create over the course of the semester with each project we did. I began with a house. A place where the protagonist would have grown up, and a place he would look back on when his new life away from home gets hard. The house is broken down, fading like his memories of it.
FIRST CONCEPTS
FINALIZED PLAN
Process
The whole house was made from sheet metal, first textured, then bent, soldered together, and finally with all the details riveted on
ANNEALING
IN USE
Silver Charms
For the second portion of the project we were tasked with making four charms that represented items or characters that would be part of the story. I picked garden shears, an ammonite fossil, a sand dollar and a rabbit. All were eventually included in the story, again through the protagonists memories and dreams.
SKETCHES
I crafted this story first through the themes I wanted to explore, and then through the elements that might show up in the setting.
The story is set in the 18th century, following a young man who signed onto a ship and left home for the first time.
in the isolated environment he thinks back on a childhood spent in an isolated house on the edge of a village with a reclusive father. As the voyage gets more difficult, he begins to have nightmares and the events of his childhood are laced with confusion
Shells he may have found in rivers and streams, rabbits and fish he hunted with his father, garden shears he used to grow food for the both of them, and the sheep he took care of.
Lost wax/ Investment casting
Each charm was carved by hand from wax, placed in plaster, then burned away and replaced with molten silver. Then, the final pieces are polished and refined
SPRUED WAX FIGURES
Boatswain's Call
For the last part of the project, I wanted to make an item that represented the protagonist’s current reality: A Boatswain’s call whistle. These were used throughout the 18th century and earlier to call orders to the crew over the sound of the waves. In my story, the protagonist begins to hallucinate this sound. The model I made is fully functional and mostly historically accurate.
SKETCHES
HISTORICAL EXAMPLES
SOLDERED COMPLETE BALL
FAILURE: TOO MUCH HEAT
REDO
FILIGREE PROCESS
