From seaside stones to delicate silver wire, Beverly Fox crafts intricate, artful utensils.
Haywire - that's where silversmith Beverly Fox has been going these days. The studio craftsman used to be known for her precise, tightly crafted, one-of-a-kind art jewelry until she took a length of fine-gauge sterling wire and started twirling.
"It was incredibly freeingãit took me to a whole other level of fun," she says.
Fox herself is petite and wiry; her handshake has a warm but almost vice-like tenacity. Building on the base of wave-smoothed stones from the coast of her native Maine, Fox began creating a whimsical, wildly diverse assortment of delicate silver baskets, ladles, fanciful spoons and other utensils and functional art for the table and the home.
This is not your granny's good silver. The baskets, glittering with beads and semi-precious gems, twinkle like dewy spider webs on bases made of stones that are perfect for skipping. The ladles have long smooth stone handles and capricious, cockeyed baskets like silver birds' nests. And the lobster-boat-shaped butter knives come complete with tiny, spinning propellers.
"This was like finding myself. It's hard finding a niche for yourself in studio jewelry. There's so much of it, and so many good jewelry designers," says the inventive Fox, who, notably, holds a patent for her design of a swivel-locking jewelry clasp. "I still think there's always room for beautiful, one-of-a-kind, handmade silver jewelry in the world, but this was like open territory to me."
Fox admits she has a thing for stones. "I love the way the water has smoothed the surface," she says. "I love to look at 'em, pick 'em up, hold 'em." She makes this admission while showing off a basket of granite stones, speckled and creamy as hen's eggs; a few smooth blue pebbles that she has tucked in her purse and pockets; the shimmering opals and fossilized sea creatures mounted into her gleaming necklaces with their heavy serpentine handmade chains.
Picking up stones on the beach in Maine while on a visit home, Fox was inspired to make her stone tools, integrating both her whimsical woven silver wire as well as formed silver sheet work onto the stones. "Each basket, each of these tools is uniqueãand making each one is a personal experience for me," says Fox, pulling out specimen after specimenãstones that she has plans for. "The stone determines the shape and colors included in each piece, so no two will ever be exactly the same." They will also never tarnish. Fox has been gradually discontinuing the use of regular sterling silver for her pieces and replacing it with Argentium sterling, a patented, anti-oxidizing silver that eliminates the need for silver polish and smelly rags.
She has by no means, however, abandoned the disciplined, exacting silver craftsmanship that defined her early art. A former production engineer for L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine, she may have too much of a dogged Yankee work ethic for that. Inspired and charmed by her sister's recently acquired collection of antique, twisted
silver butter knives, Fox created a set of her own. Drawing again from her sea-inspired life, the sterling lobster boat's honed and burnished prow looks butter-worthy indeed. Tiny gold fish frolic in the boat's silvery wake that is the handle, behind the miniscule, twirling gold propeller.Fox teaches various classes and workshops for beginning and intermediate silversmithing at the Cape Coral Arts Studio along with private studio instruction. She prices her pieces from around $42 for a whimsical fan pull, centered around large coral stone or handmade raku ceramic beads, to $200 and up for stone baskets and utensils to $450 for a serving spoon.
"It's hard to put prices on these things, because each stone is different, each idea is different and needs to be worked out differently, and sometimes you lose track of the time you put into it," she explains. "There are times that I come out of the studio and wonder how it got to be darkãI start to think that I'm having more fun than anyone should be having."
Beverly Fox's work is often on exhibit at the Cape Coral Arts Studio on Coronado Boulevard in Cape Coral, (239) 574-0802. She also teaches beginning and intermediate silversmithing there and at other locations in Southwest Florida. For more information, contact Sleeping Fox Inc., (239) 433-9322; www.sleepingfox.net.