Featured Artist Jo Ann Graham

Artist and silversmith Jo Ann Graham presents a stunning collection of work in metal and mixed media. Visit her website to see more of her portfolio.

 

 

They say if you live long enough you will have many chapters in your life. Well, I have been blessed with a few. I grew up in the woods loving nature. Nature provides many shapes, textures, and forms.  My father was a commercial photographer, and I loved wondering among the props and settings used in his staging of his work. Again, providing an array of unusual and architectural forms and colors.

 

 

Between these settings and watching my father work, I believe my own artist aesthetics was being developed. After marriage I worked as an apprentice to a potter. Next, I found the world of dance at Coker College in Hartsville South Carolina. I had found my passion.

 

 

I finished my undergrad degree and went on to get my MFA at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. I became the first dance consultant at the South Carolina State Department of Education. This gave me the opportunity to help build dance programs in South Carolina schools. I spent the next 20 years consulting and teaching. Now I live in Beaufort, South Carolina, a beautiful city in the low country. I had to retire from the world of dance. Dancers are very hard on their bodies and usually have a second or third career.

 

 

I was fortunate to find silversmithing at the Franconia, New Hampshire Institute of Art. After a brief introduction to the torch and forging, I returned to Beaufort. I began to build my own studio and after more than fifteen years I create award-winning works of art in both jewelry and utilitarian pieces.

 

 

I’ve studied with world famous forger Michael Good and the late Betty Hellen Longi, and studied chasing and repousse with famous Fabriscio Aquafresca from Italy. A lot of my work is self-taught by combining the techniques that have learned.

 

 

I’ve been published both nationally and internationally. I now tell my clients that I choreograph in sterling silver. My repertoire consists of old school techniques of forging, casting, and chasing and repousse. Forging is the use of a variety of stakes and hammers to do the job required. Casting is a unique combination of creating a negative space using wax and investment mixture in a crucible. The crucible is then dried in a kiln, melting out the wax in which melted silver is then poured. Chasing and repousse is primarily done in fine silver. There are specific tools used in this technique that look like nails with different tips for creating required shapes.

 

 

All these techniques require cleaning and polishing, and some will receive a darker patina to create more depth and texture. I love moving metal, creating textures, and rarely use stones in my work. But times change and with the recent rising cost of silver, I am now exploring new alternative metals and including various woods in my work. Time will tell, as I enter another chapter in metalsmithing.

 

 

I’ve been very blessed to create in so many different mediums. I look forward to continuing my current craft and spreading the art of silversmithing. I love giving lectures, teaching, attending shows, and creating wherever I can. Everything is connected. It is art. It is an interactive visceral process uniting the artist and client.

 

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