As a designer and craftsman, Rachel approaches her work by successfully combining contemporary design with the classic enamel techniques of champlevé, basse taille and guilloché. These are French terms given to enamel techniques developed several centuries ago and require a high level of technical expertise to perfect.
Inspired by the compelling qualities of the enamel, with it’s radiant colours and smooth surface, along with a desire to produce designs with a simplicity that promotes those qualities, Rachel develops her ideas so that her work has a natural tactile quality as well as being appealing to the eye.
Rachel utilizes the clarity and vibrancy of the transparent enamel colours by hand engraving detailed often repeating patterns beneath it’s surface, giving added depth to the colour. Rachel also uses engine turning as a way to create very geometric and symmetrical engraved patterns beneath the enamel.
There is always fine detailing within every design, such as an enamelled catch on a necklace, or the enamelled underside of a pill box and the attention to the finish of Rachel’s enamel work makes each piece almost silk-like in the way it feels when held. All of her work is designed with function in mind, so pieces can be enjoyed, admired and used without effort.
Rachel uses the same processes of preparation and application of her enamels that her Enameller predecessors would have used! There are a few fundamental differences, such as Enamellers today do not make their own enamel colours, which was done right up until Victorian times. And Rachel uses an electric muffle kiln, with accurate temperature controls rather than a naked flame or a hand made basic oven.
However, the grinding and washing of enamel colours is still done by hand using a pestle and mortar, so that the correct consistency of enamel powder can be achieved.
The enamel is applied using a goose quill, applied in several layers, each being laid as a thin coat of enamel, which is fired and cooled before the next coat is added.
Firing enamel requires accuracy as Rachel fires her work at just under 1000c, much hotter than the melting point of silver! The work must be left in the kiln long enough to glaze the enamel, but not too long to damage the silver.
The enamel is ‘stoned’ back when the recess is full, so that a perfectly smooth surfaced is created, which then has a final firing to re-glaze the enamel.
The enamel is polished in two stages, firstly by using a pumice mop, and then by using a rouge mop.
