DESCRIPTION OF WORK

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It’s easy to see that goldsmith Sarah Amos came from an island still resonant with prehistoric myth. Her one-of-a-kind creations, handcrafted in 22-karat gold refer to an age of castles and grand celebrations where the wearing of a certain stone had many meanings. “I sometimes use stones you don’t generally see in commercial jewelry: diamond crystals, rose-cut diamonds, vibrantly colored sapphires,” she says. “Some of the stones I use don’t have tremendous intrinsic value—chrysoprase, Peruvian opal—but the colors glow with a translucent inner beauty. Some people say they have soul.” She makes jewelry with Greek and Roman coins and carved intaglios, miniature works of art themselves. She has stepped out of her technical comfort zone to use the vocabulary of the ancient goldsmiths with chainmaking and techniques of granulation.

METHOD OF WORK

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Amos does not use molds, models or castings. She alloys her own gold, milling it out into sheet or wire then hand-fabricating rings, bracelets, pendants, earrings and necklaces. All her work is done

24-karat gold Montana sapphire crystal earrings, 2006.

with hand tools she created after those used by the ancient jewelry makers. She prefers 22-karat gold because it is most like alluvial gold that comes out of the ground before being washed down a river and lodged in the silt at the bottom. “The ancient Greeks and Etruscans didn’t clean up their gold,” she says. “They used alluvial gold and developed techniques to work with this particular alloy. You can’t reproduce the ancient Etruscan art of granulation or make rosettes in 14-karat gold.” Because she uses high-karat gold, her pieces do not hold a shine but rather develop a patina over time. She considers what evolves as an expression of the person who is wearing it.

FIRST ARTISTIC INSPIRATION

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Growing up in Wales, Amos was surrounded by castles, cathedrals and Roman ruins. Her mother lived on a farm under which a Roman villa lay buried. These influences are obvious in her work. But her first inspiration, she says, was her introduction as a teenager to Scandinavian Design Movement, especially Georg Jensen, and modernist architecture. “They were a contrast to the medieval ruins all around me,” she says. “Getting a solid foundation in ancient technique gave me a sense of freedom to explore.”

MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE

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Although Amos had a background in silversmithing, in 1973 she fell in love with the properties of gold when she went to study at the Kulicke-Stark Academy (now the Jewelry Art Institute) in New York. “My teacher, Robert Kulicke, exuded enthusiasm and curiosity about ancient jewelry-making,” she explains. “At the school I was one of a number of students and teachers researching and discovering how the masterpieces from the past were made. We were reviving techniques such

24-karat gold granulated oak-leaf earrings, 2000.

as granulation, chainmaking and enameling.” She has also been influenced by the inner beauty of Ted Meuhling’s jewelry designs. “He has an eye for the elemental purity of organic forms,” she says. “That elemental purity is what I am drawn to.” Soetsu Yanagi (1889–1961), Japan’s visionary scholar and founder of the country’s folk art movement, influenced Amos both personally and professionally. He maintained that the ability to create art is inherent in all people and that the everyday items of a culture, made by unknown craftsmen, held a beauty seldom matched by artists of modern societies. He felt this beauty was the flowering of individual expression coming from the heart, head and hands. “His ideas were controversial,” Amos says. “He felt it was important to take the ego out of the creative process.”

BIGGEST BREAK

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After her schooling in Britain at Newport College and High Wycombe College of Art, Amos moved to New York to attend, then to teach at the Kulicke-Stark Academy. When a Madison Avenue gallery specializing in antiquities noticed her work, it afforded her an opportunity to build larger pieces. “I used to make these massive pieces that sold for more than $40,000,” she says. “They always told me to use a lot of gold.”

ARTISTIC PHILOSOPHY

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When Amos approaches a piece of jewelry, she intends it to be functional, timeless and unique. “I enjoy working with the client and developing a relationship that produces a more personal and unique piece,” she says. “I often find that clients become collectors. My own work allows me to explore unusual stones and forms that have meaning and excitement for me.”

FAVORITE PIECE

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“I always like the piece I am working on the best,” explains Amos, who specializes in custom work that portrays the client’s personality. “It may be small and not a showy piece, but it might have that magic or purity, the certain perfect satisfying something that holds me in thrall.”