Sarah Graham Metalsmithing

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The summer of 2006, we put everything except our jewelry studio into storage and rented a house in the charming village of Mendocino. We set up our tools and benches in the garage, and watched the deer graze in the meadow as we made jewelry with the garage doors open. It was a wonderful experience, full of memorable moments, like when we found a three day old abandoned fox on our front door step! We also enjoyed the much slower pace of life, and all the time it gave us to spend with friends. It was at the edge of the meadow, growing along the driveway, that our friends Caroline and Al Samas, just leaving after a leisurely visit, found the wild Rattlesnake Grass. Al picked a piece and handed it to me, with the instructions: Sarah, make jewelry out of this! Of course I did, and despite its reptilian name, the collection it one of our most pretty and feminine ever. But, I assure you, the necklace really does move like a snake! Made up of over 250 individual pieces, this is our most ambitious and beautiful designs to date.