Jewellery

The Pottery Store is fortunate to have two talented jewellers presented in the gallery.  Their work ranges from sophisticated gold and silver earrings, pendants, and belt buckles to colourful glass earrings.  


 Lorne Flach - Flax Metal Arts Studio

Native to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Lorne has had a long time interest in art with particular emphasis on drawing and graphics. He worked in this area for many years following training at SAIT [Southern Alberta Institute of Technology] in Graphic Arts and at the Alberta College of Art in Printmaking.        

 

Lorne first became interested in jewellery and metalworking as a medium which could combine graphic design with a three dimensional format at the Red Deer College's Series Summer Program. He found the medium intriguing and continued to study for the following three years at Red Deer before returning to the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, Alberta for a more comprehensive exposure to jewellery and metalworking as an art form.
   

Since leaving the Graphics industry in 1992 and relocating to Vancouver Island Lorne has three times been honoured with awards for work entered in the prestigious Cowichan Valley Arts Council Exhibition. He has shown and sold his work at juried shows throughout Western Canada.



Peggy Brackett - Artisan Art Glass Jewellery

 

Peggy's fused glass earrings are fun and easy to wear and make great gifts for the woman walking your dog while you're having a vacation on the West Coast.  Wonderful translucent colours really catch the light!

Peggy's glass jewellery starts out as large sheets of opaque, transparent and dichroic glass which she cuts, pieces and layers to create designs and colours and which she then fuses (melts) together in an electric kiln to produce a single sheet. After the sheet is slow cooled, she cuts the earring pieces from it, which are then ground, surface carved, drilled and re-fused.  The final jewellery pieces are completed using these glass creations and select findings of nickel-free sterling silver, stainless steel, niobium, rubber, etc.

Peggy makes most of her own findings, e.g. ear wires, etc. from sterling silver, niobium or 14k gold, but she also uses some commercially available  high quality findings such as bracelet clasps. She chooses or creates the findings so that they become an element of the overall design of the piece, rather than just functional adjuncts.

All designs are Peggy's.  She draws much of her artistic inspiration from the colours, textures & patterns of nature, particularly from bugs, vegetation, fish, sea creatures and microscopic life-forms such as diatoms. Peggy likes to hand carve designs or sandblast designs into the glass. She develops the sandblasting designs by sketching or photographing objects that interest her, computer manipulating those images and then printing them onto a vinyl sandblasting resist.