Turritella Designs

On Friday afternoon, I received some fantastic news! One of my complex cloisonné designs, ‘In the Rushes’, was awarded the ‘Grand Prize Silver Medal’ in the Fire Mountain Gems 2015 Metals contest. I am absolutely thrilled, and very excited to have been a part of this year’s contest!

‘In the Rushes’ was inspired by a summer afternoon I spent kayaking along the Humber River in Toronto. There were so many things to see hiding in the rushes. I wanted to capture the sense of life I found, and create a necklace with many stories to tell. The champlevé frog on the necklace clasp is hiding from the cloisonné heron center-piece. The blackbird perching on the cat-tail rushes on the back of the pendant is calling out a warning. The blue boulder-opal doublet on the bail of the pendant represents the river, and the rough granulated setting imitates the shore-line.

The pendant was constructed from metal clay, and the setting for the enamel center piece was made from fine silver bezel wire. The chain was created using the Viking-knit method, and finished with hand-made metal clay end-caps. The champlevé and cloisonné enamel pieces were created using a variety of transparent Thompson enamel colours.

You can find more details about the contest, and photos of other winners at this link: http://www.firemountaingems.com/beadingcontests/bc2015metalwinners