The Process

Everything begins from drawing…I must create multiple sketches until the wanted design shows in detail with precision.

Then there is the time to think about colors. At this stage, you have to mind the "readability" of the whole composition, comparative contrast of colors, transparency of different enamels, basically, everything that may influence the perception of future artwork. I usually make the "enamel palette" firing needed transparent enamels on the flat piece of fine silver.

Soldering. Using previously carved firebrick form, I am recreating my art piece "skeleton" on its surface, carefully connecting flat wire "ribbons" with the eutectic solder (72% silver and 28% copper). This process may take weeks to complete.

The main part of every Plique-a-Jour piece is transparent vitreous enamel. It is a glass-like substance (quartz, fluxes) with different metal oxides for coloring. Today's market offers many colors of transparent enamels, but I prefer to supplement them with my own colors by grinding natural quartz using millennia-old mortar and pestle. Formula? Well, some secrets stay in the family for generations…

Now, with enamels ground and sifted, we are getting to the "fun" part. Using a specially made tiny silver spoon, I carefully apply enamel paste to each "window" in my form—when done--comes firing. Enamel melts and fills the "window." It's in theory. In practice, paste applications are multiple in the same "window: firing is tricky because each color has a different melting point temperature; in short, there are thousand-and-one things that can go wrong, and even an experienced master cannot be sure of success. But the reward is great! The luster, fluctuation of the enamels' colors equaled these of natural gems. And given the lightness, even the airiness of a finished piece plus the time spent truly surpasses them in value.