This commission began as a wedding gift, and it came with a very special material.
My client brought me pieces of eastern marked silver cutlery that had been passed down through her family. The leek form was chosen for its relation to her Fiancé's Welsh ancestry. I wanted the leek to carry that history, so I combined the heirloom silver with raw sheet silver and built the brooch from both. The pair can be worn together or apart.
The leek is not cast. Every part of it was fabricated by hand at the bench, cut, shaped, soldered and finished in the studio. I wanted to keep the layered, slightly irregular look of a real leek, with the folds of the leaves overlapping and the stem tapering towards the root, and sheet silver let me do that directly with my hands.
I finished both pieces with a final pickle and polish on the afternoon they were collected
Thank you so much to my client for trusting me with something so meaningful, and for sharing a piece of your family's silver with me. I hope the pieces are worn and loved for many years.
