gift of gold

christmas time at our home is sweet, subtle and not big on gift exchanging. we've always been that way; small stocking stuffers, a fist full of divine chocolate, pairing it up with exquisite soul food and the odd surprise of cuban cigars. but 2015 bilic stepped out of the safe box into the wild with an extraordinary gift of one troy ounce of pure gold ♥

I generally take january off the bench so to get mindfully and physically ready for the year; this year my heart was set on stepping it up a notch .. gold is on the menu!

being self taught leaves a lifetime of room for growth, I am beyond grateful to my guru in guiding me deeply in the learning of gold alloys

and so the goldsmith in me ignites!

from left to right are my alloy mixtures
yellow gold (75.0%) aka 18k*
orange red gold (58.5%) aka 14k*
dark yellow gold (58.5%) aka 14k*

(*the common measure reference of gold is in karats, it is roughly 4.2% of pure gold per karat, hence 14k = 58.5%)

three pours formed back to back in one ingot
from left to right: yellow gold, orange red gold, dark yellow gold

started to mill out that sweet orange red gold first

practice practice practice at turning solid ingots to square then round profiles by some good old fashioned forging and pulling (sweat and grunting is an integral ingredient to this recipe of smithing love!)

me: Jurgen what is the secret to a super high mirror polished piece?
Jurgen: the secret is your trusty hard working hands, good ol' fashioned fine fine eight thou polishing paper, and precision on the polishing wheel and heaps of time time (patient) time

featuring, my very first bangle of orange/red solid gold (aka "rose" but not really rosy more like blood orange with a romantic pink hue) created with the craziest amount of fucking love .. you have absolutely no idea how much love went into this bangle, but you get the drift .. ♥

some fella's buy jewellery. my fella comes home with pure gold.  I really digg gifts of raw unfiltered love, thank you bilic xo O

march 2016