The process used to create our jewelry begins with natural material. As much as we have tried, we cannot recreate mother nature, but we have found great success using the elements from nature within the work. Anything that is able to be burned out within the casting process is able to be used. You hear lost wax casting and think it leads to the secret of the mummies tomb, but really it just means there must be an original wax for the casting to work. 

To begin, we use a plethora of natural material within our work such as hydrangea petals, tulip seeds, gingko leaves, small twigs, and much more. Every piece we create starts with a wax model that is created directly from the natural materials or carving sheets of wax into the desired piece. For the natural materials, a small pot of wax is heated up by an alcohol lamp where the petal is then dipped. By building up the wax on the back of the petal and removing as much as possible from the front, the natural texture is able to shine through and be seen in the final silver model. The petal or other natural material is then turned into a pendant, earring, or attached to a piece of dental wax as the band for a ring. 

The other process in the wax work is carving from a sheet of wax. Having a background in art, a lot of the carved work originates from drawings we made or photographs we took. The sheet of wax is semitransparent which allows for the drawing to be seen through the wax. We are then able to start carving out the details of the subject to get a general shape to start. Details can then be added by using hot tools to push, pull, and add more wax. This wax carving process has been used to create a lot of the pieces inspired by animals and architecture, specifically the belltower and the giraffes. 

Once the wax model is finished, it moves on to the casting portion of the process. The fun part where we get to play with fire and melted metal. The wax model gets mounted to a base with another piece of wax called a sprew that creates a channel for the metal to eventually get pushed into. This base gets put in a flask made from a steel pipe and filled with a material called investment made primarily from plaster of Paris that hardens around the wax model. The flask is then placed into a kiln where the wax and natural materials burn out, creating a cavity in the shape of the original wax. 

The flask is placed into a broken arm casting machine, a straight piece of metal with a hinged piece on the end similar to an elbow. The casting machine is then wound up and pinned in place, ready to use centrifugal force when ready. Silver pieces are placed into a small crucible in front of the flask and heated up with a propane torch typically used by welders until the metal is melted. Once the metal reaches the right temperature, the machine is tripped and begins spinning rapidly using centrifugal force to push the melted silver into the cavity created. Once the machine stops spinning the flask is then put aside to cool a little bit before moving on to the next step.

The flask is then placed into a bath to dissolve the investment from the new silver jewelry. Since the silver is still hot, the bath boils to a violent rolling bubble almost immediately. The casting is then released from the investment and is ready to be cleaned up for the next step. The bath doesn’t fully get all of the investment off of the casting, meaning the silver is scrubbed by hand with a toothbrush to get the rest of it off. It is then placed into an ultra-sonic cleaner to get the last remaining investment off of the casting. Once it is cleaned, the sprews are cut off of the casting and the piece of silver starts to resemble jewelry. 

The casting is then placed into the tumbler to get it shiny like silver is expected to be. Once it goes through at least two rounds in the tumbler, one with rough grit and one with fine grit, the piece is ready for finishing. The rings are then separated by size and labeled, earrings get wires to be worn, and pendants get chains.