Maker’s Journal 01: Baule-Style Brass Beads
On lost-wax casting, the beauty of variation, and one of the materials becoming a Tempered Earth staple.
Maker’s Journal 01
One of my favorite parts of making jewelry has always been learning about the histories of the components themselves. When I’m sourcing beads, I’m rarely thinking only about color or shape. I want to know where something comes from, who made it, how it was made, and what traditions might exist behind it.
I think this curiosity comes from the collector’s spirit I’ve had for as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I collected rocks, gemstones, shells, and other natural treasures. Part of the pleasure was learning about the things I found, and that same instinct follows me into my work now.
That curiosity is what inspired this Maker’s Journal: an ongoing record of the materials, craftsmanship, traditions, and objects that inform my practice at Tempered Earth. These entries aren’t intended to be exhaustive histories. They’re notes from my own process of learning—an archive of the things I encounter through making and what I learn about the beads, components, and techniques I work with.
I’m starting with Baule-style brass beads because I’ve become a little obsessed with them.
Lost-wax
Inspired by the metalworking traditions associated with the Baulé people of Côte d’Ivoire, these brass beads are made using lost-wax casting, an ancient method of metalwork practiced in different forms across many parts of the world. The process begins by creating a model of the object in wax. That form is encased to create a mold, and when heated, the wax melts away, leaving behind a cavity into which molten metal can be poured. The mold is ultimately broken to reveal the finished casting.
It’s a process that lends itself naturally to variation. Rather than emerging from a standardized industrial mold designed to produce endless identical copies, individual castings retain their own small differences in shape, texture, and surface. Those differences are precisely what I love.
Maker’s Journal 01 · A Closer Look
Variation
I’m increasingly interested in design elements that allow you to see evidence of how they came into being. The brass isn’t perfectly smooth, the patterns aren't always completely uniform, and one bead may rest on a strand slightly differently from the next. I think those variations give the beads their character.
There’s a tension there that feels very much at home within Tempered Earth: something can be precious without being pristine. It can be newly made and still feel as though it has a history. I’m drawn to jewelry with that kind of depth—pieces that accumulate even more character as they’re worn and, perhaps one day, begin to feel like heirlooms.
And beyond all of that, if you can’t already tell: I absolutely adore brass and gold.
In the studio
Baule-style brass has already found its way into several Tempered Earth pieces, where its warmth and texture take on different forms alongside glass, sandcast beads, and other brass elements. This likely won’t be the last time you see it.