BARBARA M. BERK

I created “Toccata” especially for the New West Coast Design: Jewelry + Metalwork exhibition at Velvet daVinci Gallery (San Francisco, CA, 2008). 

It started with squiggles on paper, some of which grew into sketches.  I shaped pipe cleaners to see how the curls and spirals would interact, and quickly realized that what was pleasing on paper was less so in 3 dimensions.  With more sketches, I continued to develop the design and tested a number of new elements that it would require.  Combining the final sketch and the new elements, I then wove a full-scale model in silver.   Fine-tuning the design, I overlaid a pipe cleaner on a section of the model to improve the balance and then factored the additional dimensions into the pattern.  Only then did I start weaving the gold wires to create “Toccata”.

View Making the "Toccata" Pendant – see the sketches and prototypes…follow the weaving sequence I used to create “Toccata”.