SuHar Jewelry Designs

ABOUT ME AND MY JEWELRY

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I am an artisan (based in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada) who handcrafts one-of-a-kind copper and sterling silver jewelry pieces.  This includes earrings, necklaces and pendants, bracelets and hair accessories that are created using traditional metalsmithing techniques, wire-weaving techniques and chainmail techniques.

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Traditional metalsmithing techniques involve annealing (heating) the metal with a torch to soften it so that it can be cut with a jeweler’s saw, worked/textured with hammers and further textured using a rolling mill in some cases. Various pieces of worked metal are then shaped and fashioned into jewelry pieces with or without semi-precious stones.

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Wire-weaving involves creating intricate woven patterns using very fine gauge wire around two or more thicker gauge pieces of wire. These woven wires are then shaped to create artistic 3-D forms and/or to capture semi-precious stones for use in various jewelry pieces.

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Chainmail techniques involve creating hundreds of jump rings of various thicknesses and diameters and then weaving them into patterns that derive from ancient chainmail patterns traditionally used to create armour.  These patterns have been adapted into forms suitable for jewelry making.  I create the jump rings by winding the wire around different sized mandrels to create a long coil and then hand cut each ring from the coil.

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Each completed piece is then carefully filed to remove tool marks, sanded and then polished.  A patina may or may not then be applied using a substance known as Liver of Sulfur to give the piece a warm antiqued appearance. I pride myself in the fact that all of my pieces (excluding some chains/clasps) are unique and 100 % handcrafted by me in my home studio.

~Susan Hardy