Baldinger, Edie

My work is the result of a collaboration between metal, the jeweler’s torch, and a touch of chance, tempered with the artist’s eye.   The textures that are the focus of this wearable sculpture are fused collages of sterling silver that evolved from a desire to recycle what other jewelers might regard in as scrap -- wire ends, slivers of silver, dust from filings.

With curiosity one day,  I turned my torch flame unflinchingly on a random collection of silver scrap.   Waiting and watching, the silver began to move, then flow, morphing into a luminous liquid, vibrating with heat and life.  A split second later, the branched form pulled together and became an almost perfect, molten sphere.   Ecstatic, I knew that somewhere in this quickening, I had found a new direction for my work, if I could arrest the process at that moment of fusion and before complete meltdown.

My pieces most often do not include set stones, as I feel that the result of this process of fusion, rich layers of texture,  is most engaging without.  All of my pieces are one of a kind, are often asymmetrical, but strive for balance.  My work nonetheless unites with themes of form and textural richness.   I also have recently begun to use 23.5k gold foil which is itself fused to the silver through the ancient Korean process called Keum Boo.  I hope that the sense of discovery that I find every time I light my torch is evident in the work you see before you.