20
WBM october 2017
CREATING COLOR
OCAL METALSMITH
MELISSA
MANLEY,
who earned
her Master of
Fine Arts in metal design from
East Carolina University in 2006,
stumbled into the art of enameled
jewelry serendipitously.
While completing her degree,
Manley spent weeks meticulously sol-dering
two intricately winding cop-per
cups. Out of concern for heavy-metal
exposure, Manley sought
alternative means to preserve the
usefulness of her work. An instructor
suggested she enamel the pieces,
and sparked a newfound passion.
With an ounce of hesitation, she
coated her precious copper cups
with enamel, put one in the kiln, and
held her breath.
“I pulled it out of the kiln and it
was glowing red,” she says. “As it
cooled off the color began to show.”
Ocean green and blue hues
revealed themselves with each
passing second.
“I started blowing on the glass
gently because I didn’t want to crack
it and I suddenly realized it felt like
I was blowing life into it,” she says. “I
thought to myself, ‘I don’t ever want
to stop doing this.’ It’s like they came
alive right in front of me.”
Working with enamel is like paint-ing
with a palette. By building up
layers of opaque enamel, artists
bulk up a piece and increase the
saturation of the color. With each
subsequent layer, the piece must be
fused within a kiln. Depending upon
technique, some pieces call for 10 to
20 rounds of firing.
Manley prefers translucent
enamels, which are often applied
on top of detailed designs that
are still visible beneath the
Melissa Manley uses a fork to remove earrings from the kiln in her classroom at Cape Fear
Community College.
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PHOTO BY ALLISON POTTER