Seed pods, branches, acorns, leaves and other specimens are gathered in Santa Cruz and cast in sterling silver and bronze, using the lost-wax casting method. Inside the mold, the original burns away — what remains is its exact form, but in metal.
Wei chooses what to cast by shape and texture first: a seed pod beginning to split along its seam, the toothed edge of a leaf. Then by size, thickness and material — because both the casting process and also wearability warrant considerations.
The metal records an extraordinary amount of detail, and many of the castings are left unpolished or minimally polished to retain the original texture. Often, the original botanical form is consumed in the process — and therefore one of a kind.
Pods and shells contain extra calcium, rendering negative spaces and unpredictable results. Some castings render incompletely and must be melted back down; the ones that cast more completely are often the favorites.
Equisetum hyemale, an ancient, primitive plant family. The silver retains the detailed vasculature of the stalk and the texture of the spore cones.
On a classic sterling silver hoop.
The sequence as it actually runs, a night in the kiln included.
The flask is stabilized here until the metal is melted.
Most specimens come from around Santa Cruz. A few come home from hikes and camping trips — cast to remember a place by.
A thick wax rod becomes the trunk; each botanical is joined to it with a thin wax sprue. The finished tree is weighed to calculate its weight in metal.
The tree is set inside a steel cylinder and surrounded with investment — a fine casting plaster that hardens against every pore of the plant.
A kiln heats the flask in slow stages through the night, until the wax — and the plant itself — burns entirely away, leaving a hollow in its exact shape.
Metal melts in a crucible and the centrifuge forces the molten metal into the negative space that the plant and wax left behind.
The flask is quenched in a water bucket and the plaster boils off. Brushes and dental tools pick the last of it from the recesses; an acid pickle strips the fire's oxide.
A jeweler's saw cuts each casting from the tree. The stubs and sprues are saved — they melt again in the next pour.
Sawing, filing, soldering, fabricating; then patina, polish, wax. Some castings stay unpolished — the texture of the plant remains.
Wei Hwu is a metalsmith in Santa Cruz, CA, and started her humble beginnings as a metals artist at Cabrillo College in 2019.
She began the journey with the introductory class, metalsmithing, enameling, and fabrication — and skipped casting for many semesters, having decided that it probably wasn't for her!
It only took the first carving assignment, and 25 hours spent carving a California leaf-nosed bat, to decide that casting was the favorite process. The amount of detail rendered inspired experimentation with botanical items from the local area.
“I hope people are reminded of the importance of our connection with the natural world.”
Wei Hwu