Sunne 443

Sunne, named after the Old English word for sun, is a made-to-order figure for a fellow artist, for his significant other who loves the sun – so much in fact that she’s made a career centered around it: she works for NASA on a orbital telescope that studies Sol.

Each time I make a new piece I try to do something I’ve never tried before, and Sunne has many new ideas. I’ve been using a TIG welder for all additive processes in my work, including the hoop earrings I’ve been making lately. I use weld wire to make the hoops, forming hoops using a pair of round jeweler’s pliers. In order to join the two ends together to complete the hoop, I would turn my amps down as low was possible. With a lot of extremely careful torch work I’ve been able to connect the ends before they contract back on themselves by the heat. This technique works with stainless steel, and thick bronze, but not thin bronze, which has too low a melting point and not enough thermal mass to be joined by a TIG welder. Since Sunne was to be a creature of warmth, I felt she needed jewelry with warm tones. I realized I could solder the ends together, which I also have lots of experience with. What used to be an extremely delicate and risky process became a relaxing and gratifying one.

Sunne also needed a very subtle evolution to her eyes: pupils. I needed her to be looking up, and when I use smooth ball bearings, the direction the piece is looking at not implied, leaving it up the viewer to decide. By adding small indents I was able to have Sunne looking up and staying positive.

The last, and perhaps most exciting element was the chest emblem of the sun. I had several serrated lock washers to pick from but most of them were too small, and none of them were warm colors, which didn’t work. I started with a big copper washer, hand-filed notches around the perimeter, then bent it in the arbor press to make it conform to her body. The center was then filled in with TIG welded silicon bronze.

Like a lot of my work, the overall feeling given is more noticable than all these subtle details, but the subtle details are what the overall feeling is composed of.

After my client gave my commissioned work to his sun-loving significant other, he send me a very kind email which I quote: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the level of intense joy from her in the 15 years I’ve known her.” Encouraging joy in others is the single biggest reason I do what I do, so when I hear news like this it completely rocks my world. I hope to keep bringing this joy through art for as long as I can.