Lauire Stetzler creates unique handmade fine art jewelry of the highest quality. Her jewelry work reflects an emphasis on jewelry as fine art and seeks to provide deeper meaning for the wearer in all her jewelry designs. Employing a variety of intensive jewelry making techniques, and using the finest materials, each piece is done by hand with exceptional attention to detail.
Many of the works you will find at Laurie's website at www.lauriestetzler.com, include stones such as Opals of all grades, Triple A Lapis Lazuli which is very scarce, Natural Turquoise which is nearly priceless now, the incredible, mysterious Finnish Spectrolite and various other beautiful and now hard to find gemstones. Laurie has done lapidary for decades and cuts most of the stones herself from old stock in inventory for years.
Laurie Stetzler has been producing jewelry since she was sixteen. She received her BFA in Jewelry and Silversmithing from the University of Kansas in 1972. As the sole designer for her many bodies of work, Laurie is able also to take a design from drawing to finished product. This is a rapidly dying skill as most designer/jewelers specialize in one area. For jewelry lovers and anyone who has an appreciation for art, a visit to Laurie's website is truly a treat—offering a feast for the eyes and nourishment for the soul.
I love art and particularly fine art jewelry. The process of creation has always fascinated me on many levels—from the aesthetic vision of the artist, to the sheer enjoyment the process of creating offers them, to their primitive relationship with raw materials culled from the earth as they carve, melt, cut, mold, fire, and form each piece of their artwork by hand, to the way this whole process completes a unique and meaningful design. Laurie Stetzler views jewelry not as merely adornment, but as a powerful way of drawing energies, healing, and hope to the wearers of her creations.
Laurie Stetzler is one of the experts featured on the new jewelry resource website, SPJ. In her Ask the Experts feature, she is asked about her beautiful Fuchsia Dangle Earrings:
“As with all my flower jewelry, I selected the most perfect specimen of flower I could find; usually one I grew myself. I then make a detailed drawing of the flower. Then, I carve the miniature sculpture of it in jeweler’s wax. This can take days.
I use the “low relief” style of carving which sculptors have been using for millennia. This gives all the detail and depth of the subject I’m capturing
without the weight of full 3dimensional sculpture. I have been using this technique and improving on it for many years.There is a certain “engineering” aspect to jewelry keeping in mind the wearability factor. A piece of fine art jewelry must be comfortable and last for years. In earrings, the pieces must be lightweight for the comfort and health of the ears of the woman wearing it. It is important to lighten any carving by hollowing out the back very carefully to maintain even thickness throughout the piece.
Once I have the master carving done, I surround it with a plaster called “investment” in the jewelry trade. This is also called “lost wax casting”, as the wax is lost when it is burned out in the casting oven. Casting master waxes can be very exciting, as the jeweler gets only one chance.
Once cast, (I use a vacuum casting machine) the piece of jewelry is finished and, if it is a limited edition like the Fuchsia Dangle Earrings, I take a rubber mold off it so I can repeat the design. I add the two tone effect by first plating the piece in pure silver to avoid tarnish, then painting off the areas I want to stay silver and triple plating the rest in 24K gold. This method insures that the piece will retain its beauty for many years without the need for polishing. I recommend keeping fine jewelry in tarnish proof bags for safety and longevity of the high finish.
There are, obviously, many steps and little tricks I use to produce the results I obtain but, that’s the process in a nutshell. I hope this brief description of the “lost was casting process" and of these earrings in particular has been of interest to the reader. ”
