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Egg Cup Sterling silver and emu egg

The lid and cradle are hand raised, fabricated, and planished with oriented blows from a modified cross-pien hammer. The feet and handle are cast using the fluid wax reticulation process. A decorative threaded nut at the bottom secures the cup to its feet. The eggshell is lined with food grade resin so it can, if desired be used as a drinking vessel.

I made this Hors d'ouvres Set as a companion to the egg cup, the tray is raised and planished in the same fashion as the fabricated parts above, and again the handles are done using the fluid wax reticulation process. The spoon and fork are included in the set. The napkin rings are heavy fold forms and made to compliment my other hollowware. They are available in sets of three.

These two little cups were raised from sheet that was beaten from ingots, and then chased with stylized landscapes that run all the way around. The cup on the left shows Mt. Hood with Douglas Firs, while the cup on the right shows Mt. Rainer with Western Hemlocks.

I have always loved walking on the beach, climbing on the rocks and picking up all sorts of shells and other things that wash up. After making Sonchun, the piece pictured below, I decided that I wanted to make a copper form that related to bechcombing. It is displayed with fragments of sea shell, sponges and coral, urchin spines, and bunker coal from shipwrecks inside. All of these I gathered at Point Saint George, near Crescent City, California.

In Sonchun, I hammer worked the edges creating a slight thickening in some places and thinning in others. In this piece I decided to further explore this process. I thickened the center of the bottom a great deal, as well as thickening the curved areas around the lip, while leaving the tips quite thin. I also wanted to explore some of the possibilities offered by hand working the cordage, creating eyes and junctions as I went along, rather than knotting or splicing. Here again the dentilium sets off the dark copper, and the keyhole limpet makes an excellent carrying toggle.

This is a sort of a follow on piece to Gushchu, which is pictured below. It was so satisfying working with copper, cedar bark and dentillium in the same piece, that I decided that I would have to explore the theme further. In this piece all of the cordage is made from the bark of red cedar to complement the darker finish on the copper parts. The conical top and the acorn cap shaped bottom I raised from copper sheet, working the edge details with a hammer, and making all the holes by driving a drift through the sheet, and then rolling it about to stretch the holes. Thus no metal was ground or filed away from the parts. The three clips that attach the hanging cords to the bowl are inspired by the curves of bent wood halibut hooks, and were also made without removing any copper. The same is true for the suspension loop at the very top, which turns freely in its hole. I used dentillium not only for decoration, but also to attach the cords to the conical top. This is done by running a loop of the cord through a heart shaped hole, and pinning it with a small dentillium shell.

acorns have fascinated me since I was very small, and as a child I played all sorts of make believe games with them. Sonchun is the word for acorn or oak, and in traditional times there were many stories about both tree and nut. In much of California and Oregon acorns were a staple food. They were gathered, dried, ground, and blanched to remove the tannins that make them taste so bitter. When prepared right they make a wonderful nutty starchy mush that is great with dried fish. Nowadays I live where there are many cedars and few oaks, but I remember the big white oaks of my youth; their shade their mosses, their mistletoe. But most I remember their acorn with the smooth caps that look like tightly woven baskets.

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Gushchu A Pacific coast mazer - Copper, redwood, cedar bark, and dentillium This is the second mazier I have made from copper and redwood, and this time I wanted to make a piece that was very much of the Pacific coast. The word Gushchu means Coast Redwood. In Northern California and Southern Oregon Coast Redwood is one of the two sacred "original" trees, and is in fact very ancient. I made all the metal parts of copper which traditionally is the symbol of eternity, and attached the redwood to the copper with cordage rather than the usual fasteners. For this I twisted yellow cedar bark, and tied it with a cargo hitch. The feet are in the form of "Coppers," the traditional emblems of wealth status and generosity in many of the islands of Washington British Colombia and Alaska. The dentillium that decorate the bowl are the traditional money from all along the pacific coast of North America, and are still quite sought after in some places. This piece is not for sale; it is for trade, and anyone who wants just has to come up with something that I want in return. The tricky thing is that I do not know what that is, but I'm sure that when the right person with the right thing appears that I will know then.

When I was young I studied with a coastal native basket maker, making traditional designs in spruce root, and hazel. I no longer have time to gather and process basket materials, but I still love the traditional shapes. There are ways in which raising sheet metal is similar to weaving baskets, and it lends itself to many of the same forms. This little container is in the form of a traditional tobacco basket, complete with lid and little square spots at the centers of the top and bottom. The lid is separate and held in place by a thong that runs through three loops of deerskin, and is decorated with little chips of walrus ivory.

I based this form on a personal female urinal of the sort used by backpackers. In spite of their use and the fact that they are usually made of plastic, I think they have a beautiful shape. So I recreated that shape in copper and ornamented it with clay and glass beads. The limpet shell acts as a toggle for suspending the form.

Inspired by the beauty of the materials this mazer has a heavy foot and is set with an engraving of a redwood branch. All the fasteners are made from square shanked copper boat nails, which secure both the foot and the engraving as well as all the retaining brackets. The bowl is turned redwood burl.

I made these as examples for a class I was teaching on contemporary domestic copper work. The bookend on the right has a design of a Wapato, or Camas, flower cut through the thickness of the metal, with chased details. Wapato has beautiful blue flowers and a root that has been cooked and eaten for thousands of years. The bookend on the left has its design cut through an overlay plate that is riveted in place, and has engraved details. Its design features psychoactive mushrooms.

Items from the Arts and Crafts period are very popular right now, and are often blindly copied, without any understanding of the principles behind them. This is especially true for the notion that domestic and architectural objects should relate to their location. I was making some Arts and Crafts post lamps to promote a class and decided to make one with cut outs of local landscapes. It seemed like the logical extension of the A&C ethic into my fascination with contemporary copper work.

This lamp is sized to fit the top of a cedar 4x4, and the glass glows a beautiful amber color when lit.

Fold Form Earrings - Boat pattern	Fold Form Earrings - Pod pattern
Fold Form Earrings - Parallel Pattern	Fold Form Earrings - "T" Pattern

Two Finger A forged form stirrup ring designed for two fingers. .999 silver and carnelian. Fits a hand with a ring finger that is about a size 10	Spiral Polychrome Earrings These flanged and spiraled earrings are made of 22K gold and sterling silver mokume gane. This pattern is also available in plain silver.

I originally came to the world of art jewelry from a background in blacksmithing. This series of hand forged brooches is a return to my roots in metalsmithing; a completion of a circle.
These pure silver forms are forged from solid ingots, without the use of soldering, riveting, or stock removal, and with little or no finish filing. They have been hand burnished, tumbled, and then hand rubbed with a flannel cloth. I have neither attempted to hide the marks left by the hammer, nor have I used hammer blows beyond those required to create these shapes.
My goal is to not only express myself through the metal, but also to allow the metal to express its own character through my work.

Note: Not all of these brooches that are yet sold some are on display at Danaca Design Studio in Seattle, WA.

#1 - Double - Sprung Fibula	# 2 - Four Cornered Annular
#3 - Single - Sprung Fibula SOLD	#4- Side - Sprung Fibula
#5 - Six Cornered Annular	#6 - Recurved Penannular SOLD
#7 - Dragonesque Pin	#8 - Rosette Annular
	#9 - Double Recurved Penannular   (Numbers 10 and 11 are pictured in the group at the top of this section.

Bill Dawson
3403 Steamboat Island Road NW
PMB # 527
Olympia, WA 98502