INTRODUCTION
"I, ( Alexa ), am the enamelist and Peter, my husband, is the metalsmith / goldsmith. This is our 21st full-time year in business under the name “Enamelights”, but I feel as though I've been an artist all my life! I've been working in pastels and in enamel since the early 1970's. During those early years I worked on large-scale enamel paintings, pictorial as well as abstract. Eventually my love of enamelling lead to the small cloisonne enamel pieces framed as jewelry that Peter and I create today.
I begin my half of our creations by making an accurate pencil drawing of the design and then bend ribbons of 24 kt. gold cloisonne wire to conform to the drawing. Next I lay out the wires on the fine silver base and kiln-fire them into a first coat of previously-fired clear vitreous enamel ( called flux ).
The enamel is ground glass. I fire it at approximately 1500 degrees F as I prefer to fire hot and fast. I use many coats of vitreous enamel in many colors and kiln fire each piece about 20 - 25 times to build up the color design within the cells ( called 'cloisons'). I use enamel from many suppliers including Ninomiya, Soyer's Cristallerie de Saint-Paul and Schauer, often together on the same piece. I also used Thompson's leaded for years on many of my large-scale pieces.
Once I've finished an enamel piece Peter fabricates a Karat gold or Sterling silver setting. We consider his settings to be the finishing "frames" for each of my enamel art works. All his work is fabricated by hand - no castings. Each piece is cut using hand saws then formed and forged with mallets and hammers, and finally, assembled using multiple torch solderings.
Peter has an intense love of nature as well as a great interest in strong, dimensional abstract forms and both influences act as inspiration for his metal work. He has a special interest in sleek, sculptural lines and strong textures.
Complementary gemstones are often added to the settings and the surfaces engraved to add texture. After setting of the gemstones and enamels, some frames are further polished whilst others are given matte or semi-matte finishes."
Alexa Smarsh
