Lamellated Cocoon by David Barnhill 2008: Here is the front of my latest box dealing with searching. Everything I have been working around lately deals with magnification in one aspect or another and the distortion that often accompanies magnification. I hope that you like the images- and hopefully I am adding them correctly.Lammellated Cocoon front by David Barnhill 2008: Here is the front of my latest box.Lamellated Cocoon by David Barnhill: Another picture of my latest box.lamellated cocoon by David Barnhill 2008Lamellated Cocoon by David Barnhill 2008Lamellated Cocoon by David Barnhill 2008Lamellated CocoonSorry about not keeping all of the pictures together- I'm new at this. So here it goes:

This is my latest completed box. The box started out as a brooch (which started out as a doodle and a bit of chasing and repoussee practice). Seems a bit strange, but I misunderstood SNAG's (Society of North American Goldsmiths)2008 Savannah, pin swap. I thought it was supposed to be a more personal event. Basically being that I planned on making a very nice brooch/pin and then presenting it to a admired metalsmith. It never dawned on me that the pin swap was basically just a networking event to bring people together as a conversation starter. Oops.
So I had this brooch that I really ended up liking and wasn't about to trade it off for a piece of plastic and hot glue. I really, really liked it, but couldn't figure out how to keep it as just a brooch- so I dove back into my books. In the book Seeds, Time Capsules of Life by Rob Kessler and Wolfgang Stuppy there are some excellent examples of elements of natural design. Some of these seed designs really matched the textural elements of my brooch and I started sketching ways to expand my brooch from a brooch to a box. I was suddenly fascinated. My last project dealt with a pinecone/pill bug and I wanted this project to sort of be a blur or mixture of two or more elements of design- not just the representation of a 3D model of the seed (Delphinium peregrinium). I started thinking of similar designs. The initial seed and its papery layers. The pattern on the underside of a whale's head. A white faced hornets nest. Lamellated layers folding over and encapsulated in a cocoon... And that is where the project headed. My brooch was no longer a brooch and I was no longer happy with it just being that. I wanted more. I wanted something that I could hold and peer into. I wanted something that felt precious.
A few new processes along the way: It was my first time using the Aura 22k fuseable gold from Mitsubishi (Rio Grande). Playing with that stuff is wild. I found that torch firing on the fine silver to be a much better way to fuse rather then trying to kiln fire fuse. Also, when burnished the gold looks amazing. However, the gold in strong pickle is bad. It worked well for a while, but I noticed extremely small gold flecks floating around the top of my pickle when I went to grab the piece out. So be careful.
I think that about does it. If you have any specific questions I will try to keep the blog updated. Thank you.
Sincerely, David Barnhill