Shopping CartMarsha White Jewelry Artist
In 2002 I left my lengthy but dissatisfying career in academia to return to my childhood love of art. I took my re-born art seriously, and made the usual progression from drawing with charcoal to painting for color and light. I also began tinkering with beading because the colors of the semi-precious stones knocked me out. When I failed at 2D art and became tired of sitting alone endlessly stringing necklaces, I turned to metals and started taking courses at Metalwerx in Waltham. Soon I progressed from Jewelry 1 to studiomate, coming in every day to work on my latest creation. Because I'm smitten by both jewelry and the Southwest, I've amassed a large collection of Indian jewelry, especially Navajo cuffs from historic to contemporary.
Also, I am a sucker for blue. Put all these together and you'll understand why I'm wedded to blue turquoise, both for its range of hue from pale to deep, and also for the range of matrix colors and patterns from virtually none in the pure sky blue of Sleeping Beauty to the variations of matrix colors and patterns in Bisbee, Roylston, Morenci, and Fox. Having amassed more than a substantial number of Navajo cuffs, I turned to collecting an endless stream of cabochons. The next step was to cut my own cabs, so I took a workshop from the master lapidarist Michael Boyd.
Having purchased some top quality rough Bisbee in Gallup, I labored over each cab in an attempt to turn it into a tiny sculpture. Also in Gallup I acquired some excellent rough nuggets of Sleeping Beauty. I so admired the natural edges of the nuggets that I sliced them and ground and polished the insides, but left the organic edges to form pieces that both display the pure blue and retain the natural form of the nugget. In a different workshop I learned a high heat treatment of copper. Some of my pieces turned out to have interesting ranges of color from a bright gold to a deep maroon. In addition, because the extreme heat takes the copper to just short of melting, there are also variations in texture, where the copper started to bubble. I also stamped some of the pieces beforehand to add interest. So, my jewelry varies from beaded necklaces and wire-wrapped earrings, to natural rough cut turquoise, to heat-treated copper.