Making Glass Resin Jewelry, Casting Resin, Talismans & More with Susan Lenart Kazmer

I love embedding treasures in resin jewelry–precious paper ephemera (or copies of it), leaves and twigs and other treats from Mother Nature, found objects, glitter!!–but resin has so many more capabilities than just being the “glue” that holds mixed-media works of art together. It can be the star of the show when cast into shapes you create, molds you buy, or molds you make from found objects.

Resin can also be tinted, carved, embellished with foil–and those techniques combined can create gem-like focal pieces for resin jewelry making that are truly one of a kind. Here’s Susan Lenart Kazmer to share how she creates cast resin jewelry, “glass” resin pendants, talismans, and more inspiring news of what she’s been creating lately!

Nontraditional Resin Jewelry: Shaman’s Collar

By Susan Lenart Kazmer

I am finding my work moving into a refreshing, exploratory direction. With my new process, I am incorporating the organics of nature and combining fabricated sterling silver and bronze, so the finished results generate powerful nontraditional jewelry. I find myself taking an unusual approach and have begun embedding qualities, intention, text, and prayers into my components and finished jewelry, the same as ancient people did long ago, to create talisman jewelry.

In my process of becoming a jeweler, I researched, collected, and held in my hands pieces from many cultures that were built and worn to protect, strengthen, or send love to the wearer. I have held gorgeous silver prayer boxes from India with layers of scribbled messages and power words. In my work, I use this same process to build my own embedded charms.

I continue to work in sterling silver, bronze, leather, organic materials, and resin. In 2006, I mixed together an exceptional resin product that had all of the qualities that I needed in building work for an art exhibit, museum, or for my commercial jewelry line. With this product, my ideas, inventions, and exploration in jewelry are endless. Some of the qualities I favor in ICE Resin is the clarity that will last my lifetime, and because of the longer set up time, I have a perfect surface when dry and I can embed anything into resin without bleeding, altering, or destroying my object.

In recent resin work, I am casting beautiful leaves and combining them with brilliant tints and foils; sealing in organic materials such as dried flowers, feathers, and beach sticks; and making prayer boxes by stacking embedded words onto paper made transparent with ICE Resin.

I am teaching workshops in building resin and metal/resin jewelry around the country, including at Bead Fest. Students will build transparent layers of resin in Resin 101.

In my Resin, Relics and Ancient Objects workshop (above), students will get hands-on tips to create pieces emulating color-encrusted ancient artifacts and cast transparent resin that is much lighter to wear and can be carved, marked, and finished with sgraffito.

Throughout history, Talismans and prayer boxes have been worn purposely and used to enhance and bring the qualities, prayers or specific intentions embedded into these boxes into fruition. These boxes and containers are constructed into beautiful, purposeful and wearable adornment to be carried for protection, power and love. The repetition of wearing a prayer box embeds the intentions deeply and profoundly into the wearers life. In my Building Small Boxes + Fringe workshop at Bead Fest, learn techniques of my most recent personal signature work in earring form. Learn the very practical skills of building three-dimensional unique sterling silver small box forms. Be prepared to open up creatively and allow yourself to create the extraordinary.

In my Rings: Caging Objects Industrial Jewelry workshop, focus on building an uncommon and unexpected ring band in a cage-like personal style of mine allowing use of negative and positive space to match the overall build of the piece. Start by building a unique cage bezel. The cage form is a strong element in my finished work to produce a strong industrial vibe to showcase a dimensional object with forged and soldered wire to show all sides.

Experience hands on learning and education of liquid enamels and its full potential in a relaxed environment in my Liquid Enamels: Expression in Glass workshop at Bead Fest. I will focus on two very unusual and detailed techniques using liquid enamel to attain layers of color and torch firing: sgraffito, a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface to reveal a contrasting color below, followed by a technique of wet packing 80-grit enamel to add vibrant color into the recesses. Later, we’ll learn a liquid enamel painting technique using glass paint and graphite to create symbolism, images, text, and color.

I teach “Stones, Bones and Sacred Jewelry,” a transformational art and jewelry retreat in Indonesia that focuses not only on practical and necessary jewelry techniques but my practice of embedding talismans, intention, text, and prayers into resin jewelry and metal work. On field trips, students learn this process, a common practice in Indonesian culture, through a medicine man and series of blessings, rituals, and ceremonies. We focus on building a shaman collar using our own objects, altering leather, fabricating metal for resin jewelry, and the process of generating talismans. This is ICE Resin in its highest art form! For the good of the whole.

–SLK

Can’t make it to one of Susan’s fabulous international retreats? Join her for a fun and meaningful learning experience at Bead Fest!

Learn more about resin jewelry making–including how to combine resin with metalwork, resin casting, using found objects and paper in resin, and much more, from basics to way-beyond-basics–with Susan Lenart Kazmer in Resin Alchemy. And try your hand at this free project from Susan!

Check out the library of inspiring and instructional videos and books by Susan Lenart Kazmer!