The finished plique-a-jour smiley

[afmetalsmith]

Plique Smiley, completed Glass plique-a-jour enamel in a fine and sterling silver filigree, with sterling silver, natural yellow sapphire, and black diamond. This pendant has a lot of movement and dances when worn, in keeping with the playful nature of the smiley face. The black is opaque enamel; the yellow is translucent, so it looks nice without light behind it and glows when back-lit. This is the other of the two pieces I created for a 2006 show featuring the smiley at the Worcester Historical Society. Worcester, MA is the original source for this icon of the 1970s. (Seen in person, the sapphire is more yellow and not as orange as it looks here.)

Comments

[silme.livejournal.com]

I like it. You've taken the old yellow/black smiley face I remember from the late '60s-early '70s and updated it. It's great. I also like the border a lot.

[afmetalsmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I think we are roughly from the same era, so it was a trip back for me, too. I wanted to do a really traditional, straight rendition of the design, since i figured the "fine artists" would handle the variants- and from what i saw of the other pieces when I dropped mine off, this was correct.

While I was there a guy came in with a couple of amazing, Gorey-inspired pen-and-ink pieces with smileys in gothic, angsty settings. They were very cool. :)

The original concept for the border- which has practical significance involving coefficients of expansion etc.- was to have a round of black on the inside (which it has), then yellow on the outside. However, I decided that using the same yellow as in the face would look dumb, and I don't have a transparent yellow that was a good match for the translucent I used in the face, so i decided to leave it open. And a good thing I did, because the solder joints that HAD held on the settings and the bail failed- there is a good reason why people do not use eutectic solder unless forced to- so the open filigree gave me an alternative way to attach the black diamond and the bail. And, honestly, I really like the way it turned out- better than my original concept. :)