5 x 3 x 0.2 cm
Sterling silver (.925)
Concentric circles of square wire create depth representing the complexity of layers that accumulate within a wholeness.
Fifteen years ago in The Goldsmith Shop at Hope Bay on Pender Island, B.C., Alfi watched Peter Binner, master goldsmith, solder precious metals, draw gold wire, and roll sheet silver. For five days, she watched. When she left, Peter said: "Now, go away and make 300 bezels." She knew then that it would take a lifetime to learn how to transform the metal and stones into jewellery.
Her first "studio" was a 1980 Chev postal van. She could stand up in it. It had a solar panel with an inverter. That spring, when she started work north of Revelstoke as a prospector, every night after supper she retreated to the postal van studio, plugged the flex shaft tool and an electric light into the inverter and began making jewelry. A sterling silver ring with a moonstone sold to an investor in the project. Earrings set with amethyst cabochons were purchased by the driller's daughter. The idea that she could make something using precious metals and stones that someone wanted to wear inspired and captivated her.
As a prospector working for grassroots mineral exploration companies across Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, she learned about the geologic formation of metals, stones and crystals, the materials she works with. This work also revealed the environmental effects and ethics of extraction of these materials from the Earth. At the same time, she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver adding to a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and a diploma in GIS mapping. This education and experience further taught her how to give ideas a material form.
Today Arte Fact Jewels are rendered in one location, but the mobile wearable art of nomads and travelers, their ancient technology and aesthetics continue to inspire and influence Arte Fact Jewels designs. The gemstones, sourced during nomadic journeys across North America, embody the spirit of landscape and its underlying geology into the pieces that are made completely by hand.