STRIPES Elizabeth Garvin I’ve always loved patterns, especially stripes. I wish I could blame it on my misguided youth as a punk rocker, but a picture of me at age 4 wearing paisley pants, striped shirt, and calico jumper belies the truth. I started several pieces for the STRIPES project before settling on these earrings. There was no shortage of ideas I was excited about, but as it turns out making patterns with oxidized silver and 18k gold on a sculptural form is quite challenging. Should I gild the gold onto the surface by keum boo, (after first learning how)? Should I engrave bi-metal, (by first learning to engrave)? I’ve always been technically curious and love to learn by my own means, so these obstacles would not deter me. As this was my first theme project for AJDC, I was more than ready to push past my limits. Despite my efforts to make the project as involved as possible, in the end, the best process to create a setting for these rutilated quartz gems was the one most familiar to me. Fabrication, a process of working directly with the metal and building each part by hand, promised to give the most clean and precise delineation between the stripes, and the most exciting experience for the eye. 30