Third in a series of Local Jewelry Designer Spotlights. Meet Diana Casabar, Contemporary Jewelry Metalsmith from Keller, Texas!
This gifted artisan will be at the Funky Finds Holiday Shopping Experience Saturday and Sunday November 12 and 13 giving live demonstrations of her work! ***Details here!***
Diana Casabar was born in San Francisco but lived all over the country while she was growing up. She joined the Air Force as an officer in the Medical Service Corp after graduating college in Washington, D.C., then left the USAF when she got married. She worked in a civilian hospital in Plano, TX for a while, then had children, quit her job, and now runs a full-time jewelry business out of her home in Keller!
Diana first started making jewelry when she was pregnant with her first son. "I got all creative all of a sudden...like making a baby wasn't enough! There were only so many walls I could paint, and curtains I could make, so I took a beading class...but I didn't like any of the pendants they had for sale for the beaded necklaces." Remembering that her father used to make jewelry as a hobby when she was a child, she asked for his torch, tools, and a little instruction. She loved it so much, she enrolled in a metal jewelry fabrication class at the Craft Guild of Dallas, "and the rest is history!"
The Process
Diana's jewelry is very sculptural--curvaceous and bold, voluptuous, even. Her work consists of layers of detailed 3-dimensional pieces of metal that are each pieces of art in their own right. (Don't miss this slideshow of Diana's favorite pieces!)
The technique she uses for most of her creations is known as 'chasing and repoussé', which is a very time-consuming process that starts with a sketch on a flat sheet of metal. The metal sheet is stuck into a bowl of 'pitch', which is a substance that comes from trees and looks like hardened tar. It is heated until sticky, and when it cools, it holds the metal in place and provides a sturdy base with just enough give to allow it to be shaped by the tools Diana uses to push out the design. The tools are like tiny chisels which are tapped with a jeweler's hammer to make tiny indentations and liness on the back of the piece first. The front is then worked in the same way, and the process goes back and forth several times, front and back, until the pushing out from the one side and pushing back in from the other yields a three-dimensional form. Each element may take several hours to create, and then all the pieces are assembled by soldering, and then cleaned up and polished or finished otherwise. Visit Diana's website to see photos of this process!
The Artist's Inspiration
"Being outdoors always takes my breath away...I love things that fly; butterflies, dragonflies, birdies--I did marry a pilot!--and water is a big inspiration to me. These things all make me smile and help me find images to try to recreate in metal." What she loves about jewelry is what she assumes others love about jewelry, and even though she knows it's not necessarily true, "It's what I channel when I create jewelry for others. I love how jewelry gives me strength throughout the day...when I look at it, it empowers me to go on, to smile, to face my fears...to finish the day. I make jewelry hoping to find the right symbols for other women who need strength, so I can pass the strength on to them." Although, she says, "I think the truth of the matter is that women love jewelry as an adornment, so I try to make sure my 'symbols of empowerment' are also pretty enough to serve that purpose."
Diana's jewelry is truly art; poetic, soft, warm, and flowing despite being made from cold, hard metal! Such ironic juxtaposition is completely overshadowed by the beauty, stoicism and life she breathes into each and every piece of jewelry that flies off her bench.
You can see Diana Casabar's work at Art251 or at Artizan's Alley (both in Keller, TX), or visit her website, Flickr stream, or Etsy shop anytime! You can also follow Diana's Mettle Jewelry on Facebook for information on upcoming shows and for sneak previews of what's currently on the jeweler's bench!
This article is the third in a series of Local Jewelry Designer Spotlights. To read more from this series, and other Dallas Jewelry Examiner articles, follow this link. Would you like to receive an email notification when new articles are available by this author? Use the 'subscribe' button at the top of the page. Thanks for reading!
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