Plissée
Brooch
Silver 925, textile embossing, 38 mm x 41 mm
A thin silver sheet was textile embossed (insect screen), folded with a special pair of pliers and finally provided with a brooch pin.
Brooches
Brooches offer greater freedom of design: they don't have to accommodate your finger and they don't strain your ear lobe. Even big pieces are perfectly wearable. Unfortunately, brooches are not very fashionable these days.
My brooches are not excessively large and since they are based on thin silver sheets, they are actually very light. In most of them I have experimented with textile or paper embossing, corrugation and folding. In many ways, my brooches could be regarded as wearable miniature sculptures.
Welliger Drumlin
(wavy drumlin)
Brooch, object
Silver 925, 43 x 43 mm
The wavy, matt-finshed face of the brooch was made from a thin silver sheet by using a children's toy for producing corrugated paper. That sheet was mounted on a base and fitted with a double brooch pin. The flat drumlin hill was produced by carefully deforming the sheet. The wavy drumlin has a yet undeveloped young one ...
Diagonal
Brooch, object
Silver 925, textile embossing, 100 mm x 15 mm
There is more to this plain brooch than may be obvious. It was supposed to have embossed pattern that was continuous over all surfaces, meaning that it had to be made from one single embossed silver sheet by folding. Therefore, I grooved the backside of the sheet along the fold lines using a graver tool and then folded it into the 3D form. The geometry of the fold lines was not trivial, and I am indebted to the Andreas Bodmer (engineer) for calculating it for me. "Diagonal" is fitted with a double brooch pin.
Weststurm über dem Rotsee
(west storm hits lake Rotsee)
Brooch, object
Silver 925, length 83 mm
The jagged, wavy face of the brooch was made from a thin silver sheet by using a children's toy for producing corrugated paper. This sheet was "framed" and fitted with a double brooch pin. The elongated lake Rotsee is located near Lucerne, Switzerland.
Phoenix aus der Asche
(phoenix rising from the ashes)
Brosche
Silver 925, oxidized iron, 42 mm x 42 mm
One day, I found a heat-stressed, strongly oxidized piece of iron in the tiled stove of our alpine summer cottage. In this triptych, a stripe of that reddish brown, earthy material contrasts with two bright, lightly matt-finished stripes of silver flanking it. This early piece dates back to the 80s.
90% Kakao
(90% cocoa)
Brooch, object
Silver 925, sulphide black, textile embossing, 100 mm x 10 mm
Same as "Diagonal", the brooch was formed by folding a single textile-embossed piece of thin silver sheet. From a distance, the blackish, rectangular form looks like a very dark chocolate bar. At closer range, the geometrical shape is brocken by the elegant embossing pattern. With double brooch pin.
Leichte Dünung
(slight swell) (Hommage à Babetto)
Brooch, object
Silver 925, paper embossing, 15 mm x 93 mm
The Italian artisan jeweler Giampaolo Babetto is a master of minimalism. The angular shape of many of his brooches contrasts with their rolling face, which often is coarsely scratched. Modifying this design, I have first embossed a thin silver sheet with Japanese paper (Wa-Shi) and then carefully deformed it. That sheet was mounted on an rectangular base and finally provided with a double brooch pin.
