ART+LIFE

Personal Adornment In Metals

Metalsmith: Martha Keith

Martha Keith discovered her passion for jewelry design and metalsmithing in 1993, and has been making jewelry ever sin-ce. Today this award-winning artist and goldsmith specializes in designing and creating bespoke jewelry, that which is designed and made with a specific wearer in mind. Working closely with her clients, she designs pieces that are tailored to their desires and imbued with their personal meaning. Through this bespoke process, Martha combines her metalsmithing ex-perience with her innate ability to listen to and connect with others. She works in both precious and alternative metals, and with stones from diamonds to found rocks, and often repurposes her clients’ old jewe-lry, bringing even greater significance to the final piece. Whether communicating across the globe, or meeting in person in her Charlottesville studio, Martha works closely with each client to draw out the one-of-a-kind design that tells the wearer‘s unique story.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

ABOUT THE ARTIST

In college, a friend walked by carrying a tool box and when she told me it was for her Metal & Jewelry class, my jaw dropped at the idea of getting to do that to earn college credit. Looking back, it‘s like I was moving toward jewelry making my whole life but that was the moment I discovered it was po-ssible. I took the class that next semester and on my first day, opening my own tool box for the very first time, I picked up a sheet of sterling silver, raw and full of possibilities, and without even thinking, I licked it. I was hooked before I even started.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START WORKING WITH METALS AND STONES?

RUMOR HAS IT YOU HAVE A PRETTY CREATIVE SON. WHAT IS HIS FAVORITE MEDIUM?

Our son Felix is 5 and a half and just started kindergar-ten. As soon as markers were offered to him, he took a strong liking to drawing (never has cared for crayons) and he does a lot of story telling through his pictures. He loves creatu-res! And, all things nature, but his drawings often represent animals he‘s into at the mo-ment. He also loves stories, has always loved being read to, and now likes to tell his own sto-ries. At home, he‘ll tell a story while I transcribe it on paper, and then he‘ll add pictures. He‘s working on his own book at school right now that‘s about our dog, Bella, and a baby camel named Hump. I am so grateful that he has drawing to use as one medium for self expression. I‘ve always found art making to be so cathartic, a form of externally processing my experience of the world, and now we‘re watching him discover that tool for himself.

''Creating is so raw and so authentic and so natural, it takes a safe place to let go and let that flow out.“

HAVE YOU TRAVELLED ANY-WHERE RECENTLY? WHAT DID YOU DO?

My family went to Lake Moo-maw in Bath County, part of the George Washington Natio-nal Forest, with friends, for my son‘s first-ever camping trip. We canoed, explored, skipped

rocks, made s‘mores, listened to owls, slept in tents and ate great food.

HAVE YOU TRAINED UNDER ANYONE OR MOSTLY SELF TAU-GHT?

That first Metal & Jewelry class in college turned into a concentration in metals for my

art major, and a decent base knowledge of jewelry making. I went on to work for a golds-mith, learning repair and pro-duction techniques, and I have taken a dozen or so workshops taught by different professi-onal metalsmiths both in the US and during travels abroad. I also spent a couple of years

WHAT IS ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING ASPECTS OF YOUR WORK?

HOW DO YOU START THE DESIGN PROCESS?

Usually, with a conversation. Connecting with my clients, whether in person or by Skype or phone, I start to form ideas. Sometimes a visual comes immediately; other times I pour over my notes from our talk

working as a blacksmith and that experience of moving metal under a hammer still informs my work. I learn something new on every pro-ject; experience has been the most productive teacher.

while sketching and/or carving

These days, I‘m focused solely on bespoke and commissioned work. This way, I‘m working one-on-one with clients to design and create jewelry just for them. I‘ve done this type of work for 20 years, it‘s the work that has always found me, and now it‘s all I do. Connection with another person is the key to my bespoke work. I get a

sense for that person through talking with them and asking questions, and that interaction becomes the driving force for design.

I work best in 3-D. Even if I have a visual in my mind, or a sketch on paper, it always evolves and blossoms once I get the materials in my hands and actually sculpt that idea or drawing. I love the lost wax casting process for that reason. Working with wax is such a direct translation of that idea

into form. It can be quick too, which is great for working out possibilities for design, like sketching in 3-D. Whether me-ticulously carving a harder wax for specific detail, or melting or mushing a softer wax for a more free form result, I create the exact model of what I want to end up as metal. With my wax model complete, I make a mold of it. That mold is heated in a kiln overnight where all of the wax inside burns away, leaving a cavity that‘s a perfect replica of my model to pour molten metal into the next day. I melt precious metal with a torch, into a molten puddle, to pour into that vacant mold. Bre-aking the mold material away to reveal the metal piece is still exciting, every time.

HOW DOES YOUR WORK RELATE TO YOUR LIFESTYLE?

My work is part of my lifestyle, it‘s hard to think of them as „relating“ since they most often don‘t feel separate from each other. I often mistakenly refer to my studio as „home“. It‘s a very fluid spatial relationship between home and work. That can be a struggle at times, espe-cially when trying to separate my personal self from the nitty gritty of this business I am ru-nning, but mostly it feels like I spend my days in fluid rhythm rather than in two totally disparate parts of my life like work and personal can someti-mes become. I think my studio, even though it‘s my work place, is a very intimate place for me since so much creative energy is spent there. Creating is so raw and so authentic and so natural, it takes a safe place to let go and let that flow out.

Breakfast or Dinner?

Metal of choice:

I collect...

Bucket list...

What should change...

What should stay the same...

Tea or coffee?

Dinner -- so many possibilities!

I love them all! Today, I‘d like to forge some 24k gold.

My son‘s art

Nothing, in its own time.

Herbal tea

Do Tell...

Swimming with dolphins is on my bucket list, I‘ve been fasci-nated with them since I was a kid.

Everything, in its own time.

cylinder bur

rubber wheel

brush wheel

saw blades

jewelers saw

dividers

ring sizers

wax carving tool

stone setting burs

18k white gold casting button

14k yellow gold wire

14k yellow gold casting button

niobium

14k rose gold casting button

14k white gold casting button

greenstone (jade) from New Zealand

green sapphires

24k gold

white diamonds

lapis lazuli from Afghanistan

stirling silver wire

sterling silver tubing

14k white gold casting grain

“The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it.“

-Fourtune Cookie Strip