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Allison Korn
Handcrafted Jewelry Inspired by Nature
I am an artist who turns metal clay into pure silver jewelry. The process is quite different from traditional metalsmithing. The jewelry I make is all pure silver, otherwise known as fine silver, as opposed to sterling silver, which has other metals mixed into it. The silver is 100% recycled/reclaimed, which means no new mining goes into the pieces I make.
After living in Ecuador for ten years, in 2014 my family and I moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, where I decided I was going to turn my jewelry making into a business. I have two children, a wonderful partner, and draw my inspiration for my jewelry from nature, poetry, and people's stories of resilience. My jewelry has been described as “poetry in solid form”.
Each and every piece of jewelry I make begins with a lump of soft, squishy precious metal clay which was invented in Japan in the 1990s. It feels and looks and like clay, but it's made of pure silver particles (all recycled) and an organic binder. The company that recycles the silver gets their silver from old silverware, as well as old x-rays and photographic negatives (so many stories are embedded in my jewelry!). They extract the pure silver particles and mix it with a plant-based organic binder and water, creating “metal clay,” which is the product I use to make my jewelry.
The process of making my jewelry involves a number of steps:
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I often make my own molds and press or roll the clay into them or work freehand with the clay. Once it dries, I sand it so the edges are smooth and add any embellishments.
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I then take the dry piece and fire it in a tabletop electric kiln, at 1650F for two hours. During this firing process, the organic binder burns off, the silver sinters, and I am left with pure silver. Kind of like magic!
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Once it comes out of the kiln, I brush each piece with a brass brush to make the silver shine (the silver actually comes out of the kiln white, and brushing it flattens the particles, allowing the light to reflect evenly, thus making silver shine). I hammer some pieces, then put most of them in a tumbler to shine them even more.
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For many of my pieces, I also add a patina using Liver of Sulfur (yup, that's actually what it's called! Don't worry, it has nothing to do with animals), which turns the entire piece black (or in some cases, brilliant hues). I then polish the patina off the raised surfaces with steel wool, leaving the recessed areas dark, and the raised areas shiny silver. This process makes the textures really come alive.
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