After taking a few classes in metal arts, I was growing tired of the limited color palette of copper, silver and brass and was intrigued with the enchanting rainbow of color possibilities enameling offers. So when I stumbled across an ad for jewelry classes from a Chilean jeweler while living in Santiago, Chile, I jumped at the chance to try my hand at enameling for the first time with the lovely Carolina Hernandez Joyas.
Santiago street art in Barrio Bellavista near Carolina’s studio.
Carolina is a talented and knowledgeable jeweler, but between my broken Spanish and her limited English we stumbled through my lessons in a strange middle land of English for directions interspersed with a workshop full of tools and techniques refereed to in Spanish. Needless to say, I learned a lot from watching and imitating her.
My jewelry projects from Santiago, Chile. Sterling silver organic triangle ring set with granules and wire pressed copper triangle earrings.
After making a few silver rings and copper earrings, Carolina offered to show me how to enamel. Carolina didn’t have an enameling kiln in her workshop, so we attempted the torch-firing method. First I used a jeweler’s saw to cut copper sheet metal into shapes and then I sifted powered enamel onto copper pieces and used a torch to fuse the enamel to the copper pieces. It was fun to play around with, but I encountered numerous problems from overheating the enamel, to the enamel pulling away from the copper to pitting and bubbling in the enamel. I was beginning see just how many variables can affect the enameling process!
Torch-fired purple enamel earrings from my class in Santiago, Chile.
However on a trip in Buenos Aires at the famous San Telmo flea market, I wandered past a lovely booth filled with enameled jewelry by the talented, Delfina Allende. The earrings and pendants looked like miniature, modern art paintings and the sight renewed my desire to learn the art of enameling, but this time with a kiln.
My trusty little enameling kiln.
After returning to San Francisco and playing around with kiln-fried enameling in a few classes, I decided to set up my own studio. Through a stoke of luck, I found the perfect enameling kiln from an artist in my neighborhood that was downsizing his studio. You can check out my kin-fired enamel work on my etsy shop, IrisWillow.