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Dawn Vertrees Artist’s Statement:

It’s been said many times that artist see things differently than most people. Although I never really thought of myself as an artist, I recognized that special insight my father had that allowed him to look at a picture once, and reproduce the scene in detail two days later. I admired that in him, and I guess that’s why it was cultivated in me as I grew up around his work. To put it another way, some people look at a flower and see a pretty bloom on a stem. Other people look at a flower and see delicate petals with lacey wrinkled edges and deep red centers, graduating into lighter and lighter shades towards the outward edges of the pedals. Some people see a banyan tree and only see a huge tree with trunks coming down everywhere. Others see this huge tree with contrastingly delicate leaves that drape downward almost romantically, with each leaf offering its own little twist to the entire scene. Whether this ability is God given or cultivated over time (I think both) it’s a gift that fills my life with wonder and excitement.

This very excitement inspires me in sculpting my work. I want those viewing my work to see the very fine details which I feel are the true essence of the subject I’ve sculpted. For an orchid it’s the frilly, almost whimsical edges of the petals and the “attitude” of the way the center petal plays against the other petals. It’s the “personality” I see in these flowers that’s exhibited in the way they grow and thrive. I’m still learning and cultivating my skills for seeing as an artist. Maybe someday I’ll feel more comfortable with that title.

I’ve found that working in wax allows me to model the fine details that I see in nature into my work. I can use an assortment of waxes and different tools to get the look and feel I want to show. And because wax is so “workable” I’m able to incorporate some very fine detail that I’ve not been able to achieve in any other medium.

But being able to achieve great detail is only as good as my ability to transfer it to the finished piece, without losing the look I’ve worked so hard to capture. This is done through the Lost Wax Casting process. In this process, I basically suspend my wax model in a container from a “sprue”, which is just a section of wax used to extend the model down into the container. I then fill the container with a special plaster. Once cured, this plaster will be a solid block with my wax model held in it’s center, only exposed to the outside of the block by the sprue. I then place the block into an oven, which will heat the wax enough to melt and burn the wax out of the plaster block. This leaves a plaster block with a cavity in its center that’s a perfect reversed replica of my wax model. From there I place my plaster mold into a special machine that will inject silver into my plaster mold while spinning the entire apparatus so that the silver is pushed into every nook and cranny of the mold by centrifugal force. Once the silver has cooled enough, I run cold water over the outside surface of my plaster mold. This causes the mold to crack and allows me to remove the plaster from my finished casting. If all goes well, it’s a wonderful thing to see!

Once my casting is extracted from the plaster mold, I clean it up with a high-speed grinder to remove any flashing that is left from the mold. Then I polish and detail the piece and assemble it with other cast parts to make a pendant or ring, etc. I love to see my pieces come together. I hope you will too!

Dawn Vertrees Jewelry Designer
dawnvertrees.com

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