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<h2 id="h-elizabeth-tokoly">Elizabeth Tokoly</h2>

Eatmetal Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

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In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing.

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Eatmetal Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

When Elizabeth Tokoly agreed to participate in the Mystery Box Challenge, she wasn’t worried about what materials would appear in the box. Instead, she just “felt lucky that you didn’t take away my torch!”

When Elizabeth Tokoly agreed to participate in the Mystery Box Challenge, she wasn’t worried about what materials would appear in the box. Instead, she just “felt lucky that you didn’t take away my torch!”

<h3><img src="https://mjsa-site-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/2019_MJSA_Journal/February2019/MB_Tokoly_Necklace.jpg" alt="Elizabeth Tokoly Necklace" width="600" height="900"></h3>
She was still feeling pretty lucky when she received the box and discovered the project’s materials, even though she hadn’t worked with some of them previously.
“The first thing that threw me was the titanium,” she recalls. “I’ve never worked in it or tried it before. I didn’t know if it could be soldered. It threw me for a loop.”
And although she’s well experienced in working with sterling silver, she says that the silver mesh chain that was included posed another challenge for her. “I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with it,” she admits.
Although she didn’t know what she would make, she did know the clock was ticking, so she began by simply building different components, starting with the gemstones.
Drawing inspiration from her Elements collection, which features forged pieces and stacked rose-cut-shaped gemstones, Tokoly configured a similar type of arrangement for the garnets and chrome diopside, creating silver bezel settings for the stones and adding a thin but wide silver forged element to the stack.
Even with the pendant component complete, Tokoly was still unsure about the rest of the piece. “I didn’t know how to bring together the pendant with the chain,” she says. While she was debating what to do with the mesh, she started thinking about vintage-style layered chains. “You see it in Ancient Egyptian work, also in Victorian styles. The look has come around several times in history,” she explains.
With a direction to head in, Tokoly decided to leave the mesh chain as is, using it as just one layer of several. After creating end caps for the mesh chain, Tokoly decided to add a commercial cable chain, a handmade chainmail chain, and a simple textured and hammered chain as different layers to the piece. “I liked the juxtaposition between the handmade chain and the commercial chains,” she says. All the chains connect to silver forged elements that mirror the one she originally created for the pendant.
Tokoly was still left to figure out how to incorporate one last component into the piece. “I brought all of these elements together, but I couldn’t tie in the titanium,” she says.
As luck would have it, around this time Tokoly had a fluke encounter at a show with someone who made titanium jewelry. “They mentioned that I could hydraulic press it,” she says. Because she’s taught classes on hydraulic pressing, she already had a number of plates cut out. “I started pressing it like I would sterling silver, and I was able to get a nice ‘pillow’ form that became its own gemstone,” Tokoly says. To help it match the look of the rest of the necklace, Tokoly created a bezel setting for the pillow. She then hung it on a cable chain that’smeant to be worn on the back.
She also experimented with coloring the titanium. “I cut little chips and heated them to get different colors,” she says. Although she took notes of the results, she discovered that “I wasn’t as detailed in the exact amount of time and where my torch was placed” when she tried to replicate one particular color. Ultimately she settled for a multi-colored look that she felt would complement the garnets and chrome diopside in the front of the necklace.
For Tokoly, one of the best parts of the project was the freedom it presented, despite the demand that the piece be constructed using specific materials. “I was making for the sake of making; there was a pleasure in that,” she says. “I didn’t have to worry about pricing it, and it was going to become what it was going to become. It was fun and freeing to be able to do that.”
<a href="/publicationsmedia/mjsa_journal/mystery_box_challenge_dream_on/">&lt; Return to the Main Feature Page</a>

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<h3><img src="https://mjsa-site-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/2019_MJSA_Journal/February2019/MB_Tokoly_Necklace.jpg" alt="Elizabeth Tokoly Necklace" width="600" height="900" /></h3>
She was still feeling pretty lucky when she received the box and discovered the project’s materials, even though she hadn’t worked with some of them previously.
“The first thing that threw me was the titanium,” she recalls. “I’ve never worked in it or tried it before. I didn’t know if it could be soldered. It threw me for a loop.”
And although she’s well experienced in working with sterling silver, she says that the silver mesh chain that was included posed another challenge for her. “I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with it,” she admits.
Although she didn’t know what she would make, she did know the clock was ticking, so she began by simply building different components, starting with the gemstones.
Drawing inspiration from her Elements collection, which features forged pieces and stacked rose-cut-shaped gemstones, Tokoly configured a similar type of arrangement for the garnets and chrome diopside, creating silver bezel settings for the stones and adding a thin but wide silver forged element to the stack.
Even with the pendant component complete, Tokoly was still unsure about the rest of the piece. “I didn’t know how to bring together the pendant with the chain,” she says. While she was debating what to do with the mesh, she started thinking about vintage-style layered chains. “You see it in Ancient Egyptian work, also in Victorian styles. The look has come around several times in history,” she explains.
With a direction to head in, Tokoly decided to leave the mesh chain as is, using it as just one layer of several. After creating end caps for the mesh chain, Tokoly decided to add a commercial cable chain, a handmade chainmail chain, and a simple textured and hammered chain as different layers to the piece. “I liked the juxtaposition between the handmade chain and the commercial chains,” she says. All the chains connect to silver forged elements that mirror the one she originally created for the pendant.
Tokoly was still left to figure out how to incorporate one last component into the piece. “I brought all of these elements together, but I couldn’t tie in the titanium,” she says.
As luck would have it, around this time Tokoly had a fluke encounter at a show with someone who made titanium jewelry. “They mentioned that I could hydraulic press it,” she says. Because she’s taught classes on hydraulic pressing, she already had a number of plates cut out. “I started pressing it like I would sterling silver, and I was able to get a nice ‘pillow’ form that became its own gemstone,” Tokoly says. To help it match the look of the rest of the necklace, Tokoly created a bezel setting for the pillow. She then hung it on a cable chain that’smeant to be worn on the back.
She also experimented with coloring the titanium. “I cut little chips and heated them to get different colors,” she says. Although she took notes of the results, she discovered that “I wasn’t as detailed in the exact amount of time and where my torch was placed” when she tried to replicate one particular color. Ultimately she settled for a multi-colored look that she felt would complement the garnets and chrome diopside in the front of the necklace.
For Tokoly, one of the best parts of the project was the freedom it presented, despite the demand that the piece be constructed using specific materials. “I was making for the sake of making; there was a pleasure in that,” she says. “I didn’t have to worry about pricing it, and it was going to become what it was going to become. It was fun and freeing to be able to do that.”
<a href="/publicationsmedia/mjsa_journal/mystery_box_challenge_dream_on/">&lt; Return to the Main Feature Page</a>

Fun and Free

Elizabeth Tokoly

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