Gems of the Shore: Andrea Williams

Andrea Williams
Gems of the Shore
Specialty: Jewelry, utilizing beach stones with inlaid reclaimed precious metal
Most Recent Craft Show: Craftboston Holiday Show 2013
Upcoming Exhibition: American Craft Council Baltimore Show 2014
Website: www.boundearth.com
Current Locale: Cohasset, Massachusetts

Pursuit of Happiness Brooch of beach stones, reclaimed eighteen karat gold.

Rocks, stones, pebbles. You might find gems buried in rock, or upon cracking one open reveal a geode, but beach stones are not generally synonymous with riches, nor for that matter fine jewelry. Yet Andrea Williams has achieved just that distinction, transforming a seemingly mundane material into elegant necklaces, rings and bracelets. She does this by maintaining the stone itself as the centerpiece, and accentuating it with fine inlay reminiscent of East Asian paintings or zany digital noise. There are other artists who utilize rock in their work, but often these are used like gemstones inlaid into gold or silver necklaces, or altered by carving the surface and inlaying semi-precious stones. The subtle beauty of Williams’ jewelry is that the earth itself, condensed and compacted, has become as both jewel and substrate.

Undone Necklace of beach stone,
reclaimed sterling silver.

A New England girl, Williams has had the ocean coded into her DNA. The earliest photograph of her has her lying, secured to a life preserver and fast asleep, in the stowage area of a listing sailboat. This nautical imprinting must have paved the way for Williams’ fascination with the sea and that region where it meets the land. However, the journey to using those fruits of the shore would take some time. Williams’ first steps to jewelrymaking were metalsmithing courses in high school at Gould Academy. After she graduated, she went on to become a student at the renowned Rhode Island School of Design.

Static Bracelet of beach stone, reclaimed
sterling silver.

Even in these developing stages as an artist, alternative materials played a large part in her work. “My father was the consummate outdoorsman and he brought me lots of materials—porcupine quills, skulls, antlers, teeth, snake vertebra, feathers, birch bark, etc,” Williams reflects. “I would make earrings using sterling silver and slices of the porcupine quills or twirling silver forms that ended in beaver teeth and many more pieces that looked like unidentifiable seedpods or vining forms.”

Williams took a break from jewelry-making after she gave birth to her son. Once the creative bug bit her again, after he began pre-school, she went back to metalworking. It would still be a little time before she made the switch to her medium of choice, although the inspiration arrived naturally. “I found a series of flat stones all lined up by the tide on a beach near Cape Elizabeth in Maine and the idea to form them into a necklace and bracelet seemed obvious,” Williams remarks. “The true challenge was creating the linkage to allow the piece to be flexible.”

When asked about how her work develops, Williams starts from the beginning. "The process begins with a walk along one of my favorite New England beaches. I stroll where the rocks are still wet from the tide and the colors show through. I pick up stones looking for possibilities, pocketing some and returning others," she explains. "Once I am back in my barn/studio I start the lapidary work of slicing and shaping the stones to take off excess bulk. In the case of a bangle, I slice it in half on a trim saw, use a diamond bandsaw to cut out the center, then grind and smooth the interior. I fabricate a metal cuff to reinforce the interior of the bangle and set the two halves together using a series of metal pins secured with an epoxy. That is clamped overnight and then finished the next day. If I am adding inlay, it happens after this first round of finishing."

Vinculum Necklace of beach stones and reclaimed sterling silver.

Most of the beauty of Williams’ work is derived by constructing each piece of jewelry from the stone itself. Instead of using it as an embellishment, or mixing it with a variety of other materials, she will create an entire necklace from interlocking cored rock, a chain of stones, with the inner surface plated with silver. The grey-green of the stone blends subtly with the metal to cause eye-catching contrast with either a dark or light background, and the enormous size of each “link” makes the piece outlandish, but contained. If any component in this combination was off, it would be too much, but the restraint of the color palette offset by the scale of the piece forms a perfect storm of elements.

Keybar Blossom Ring of
reclaimed/recycled eighteen
 karat gold and Venetian glass.

In another example, Williams takes one black beach stone, cores it, and plates the inside with gold. It is now a ring. She pushes it further by inlaying the rock’s outer surface with red glass and gold wire, which by her fine hand becomes the resemblance of a cherry blossom tree. Williams adopts a minimalistic aesthetic which sometimes draws stylistic influence from Japanese and Chinese art, at other times mimicking the ethereal beauty of nature, like whisps of grass, or seedlings. In all cases, the metalwork or glass inlay never overpowers the stone, but gives the eye additional details to dance upon.

Keybar Sea Grass Necklace of
beach stones, reclaimed eighteen karat gold.
Williams says Kebyar is a Balanese word
meaning "the process of flowering".

Indeed, many of Williams’ pieces seem to be about taking the shore and transforming it into wearable form. Her Kebyar Sea Grass necklace, with long beach pebbles inlaid with gold wire, starts with gentle sprouts that wind around the necklace, growing higher and higher until they seemingly sway in a cool ocean breeze. In some cases, her subtle abstractions communicate the coastal environment more effectively. Vesper, taking wide grey-green stones, has mere suggestions of plant life; or perhaps, it is simply the movement of the wind. Expressed through slivers of silver wire, the variety of images that are conjured up, from tufts of grass to silky-haired seeds to the vortex of motion transpiring from a zephyr, all come together into an evocative presentation.

Williams feels her aesthetic matches her principles. Not of financial value or societal worth, but intrinsically simple and beautiful, with infinite variation, beach stones are the perfect medium for Williams to express her message on. The use of this particular part of the earth seems to mesh in sensibly with her sustainable ideas. As an environmentally-minded woman, she makes sure to source all her precious metals as reclaimed or recycled materials, and as of 2007 all gems she uses are lab-grown. “I try to make sure my personal choices add up. The beach stones replenish themselves, the metals are already circulating, and the gems I use are man made. The hard work—convincing precious metals suppliers to carry recycled metals, was already done when I made the decision to follow this path,” she notes. Williams buys from Hoover and Strong, who were one of the first companies to sell recycled materials, as well as Rio Grande. “There is a small premium over the cost of newly mined materials, but hey, it is my life’s work,” she opines emphatically. “I might as well do it right.”

Vesper Necklace of of beach stones and reclaimed sterling silver.