Fragile Lily
This is a further chapter in my quest for a Red SeaDragon.
For more background, start with Red Enamels.
Red enamel reacts with silver, usually by turning yellow and opaque. During some experimental enameling (while creating 40 Earrings in 40 Hours) I discovered that sometimes the reaction happened even when a clear enamel barrier was first placed over the silver. I thought perhaps the discoloration had come from red enamel touching the high side walls, where the clear didn't adequately cover the silver.
This pendant was the next test - a Very Large piece instead of a very small one, and thus with a greater silver-free surface area that should have protected the red enamel.
It sort of worked.
After the first firing there was already a slight issue with this pendant. Some contamination had gotten into my clear flux; little flakes of oxide appear as black speckles all over the surface.
After the second firing (alas, I apparently neglected to take in-process photos) the red enamel I was layering on top of the clear was veerry pale pink!
And there were cracks in the enamel.
This particular pendant was cast in fine silver (basically pure silver) instead of sterling. Fine silver is softer, more flexible, than sterling, but I had thought the size and mass of this pendant would be enough to counterbalance that. Perhaps not? Enamel changes size very slightly between being molten and cooling, and is known to warp sheets of copper. I am not certain if the cracks that appeared are due to the silver being flexed while cooling, or the enamel itself moving too much and creating stress fractures.
I did bake the pendant a few more times, both to try to add color and to handle the cracks. Each time the cracks would disappear into molten enamel, and then reappear once everything had cooled.
And, with each application of heat, the yellow halo became darker and more intense.
Clear enamel for jewelry comes in different formulations. 'Hard' requires slightly more heat to melt together and flow along the surface, while 'soft' requires slightly less heat. I currently use a medium clear, intended to match my colored enamels.
Clear enamel absorbs silver oxides from the surface - this is a feature, not a bug. But I am beginning to suspect that when the clear enamel is hot enough to flow, those silver oxides become accessible to any colored enamel sitting atop the clear. So even though there is a clear barrier between the silver and the red, with each progressive heat the red enamel is actually being exposed to a little more silver.
Perhaps.
At last I had to declare the project 'done' because clearly more firing wouldn't help. I decided to go ahead and set stones in the finials, because I couldn't bear to scrap the whole project. It received some sparkly champagne-colored CZs to accent the yellow tones.
Sadly, I don't think I can actually release this pendant into the world. It's fine silver rather than sterling silver, making it softer and at risk of bending. There are already stress fractures in the enamel, so I fear the whole piece is at risk of chipping away with anything but very gentle and mindful wear.
Maybe eventually I'll reclaim the silver?
For now, I guess this is mine.
A silly side-note on the name:
Originally I was calling this pendant "Cherry Blossom", as I intended a mostly silver look touched very gently by pink. Once the yellow appeared, I had to go looking for a new flower name to match the color.
I discovered this "Tripple Dance Lily" being carried by a few specialty gardening centers. Spelled with 2 P's, just like that.
Which should be incorrect?
Google wants very much to correct to "Tribal Dance Lily" which appears to also exist, but is much darker and appears to truly be a different variety.
Did one propagator spell the name wrong and now all the gardening centers have to go with it? Is "tripple" a correct spelling for something else? 🤷♀️
New mysteries appear every day. But hey, if you have another idea for the name for this color, let me know!
