Robert Slater

Handcrafted Fine Jewelry and Lapidary Art.My designs characteristically exhibit clean lines with Art Deco and contemporary southwest influences. I am self-taught. My style and knowledge of gemstones and metal has evolved over 20 years through study, experimentation and the practice required to master the techniques necessary to create a piece of fine jewelry. It’s about the stones: I perform all the lapidary work on every stone (except diamonds) that I use in my jewelry – from selecting the rough stones to designing and facet cutting crystals and shaping slabs to form the finished gems. The stones are shaped and polished using saws, a faceting machine, and a variety of grinding and polishing wheels. I use a wide range of stones in my work, including tourmaline, amethyst, tanzanite, garnet, lapis, sugilite, opal, onyx, and fossilized dinosaur bone.Characteristics of the gemstone including; the shape and color, the way the light hits the facets, durability and translucence play a major role in how I design my jewelry. Every stone or combination of stones inspires me to highlight and complement its beauty through creative use of metal. In some cases, I create the finished jewelry piece by first carving it in wax. The wax design is then mounted in a flask (a steel tube) and covered with investment (a plaster-like material), allowed to harden and then placed in a kiln. The flask is heated and the wax burns away (lost wax casting), leaving a mold in the investment. Using a centrifuge, I spin molten gold or silver into the mold—and the piece of jewelry is now cast in metal. Sometimes I fabricate the piece in metal by hand, using sheet metal, wire, and solder. Either way, the finished product is then sanded and buffed, and often textured to add visual interest. Once the stones are added, my creation is complete.