The Carrot & The Stick Routine

Carrot and stick, stick and carrot; simultaneously they speak to Pavlovian response conditioning and the general theory of rabbit hunting. That said, this will be a 24 karat lesson in gold, and just how to determine, how much gold is in that thing anyways ? It’s grade 5 math, so don’t worry if you get bored and start doodling or looking out the window. 24 karat is for all intents and purposes, 100% gold, expressed as a fraction this is 24/24. When you look at a piece of jewelry you might see a stamp denoting the purity of gold. 18k, 14k, 10k are pretty often seen, and expressed as fractions, these are 18/24, 14/24, and 10/24 respectively. These fractions can be converted to percentages. If you know the weight of a piece of gold jewelry, and the percentage of gold that is in it, you can easily calculate how much gold there is. Try it sometime, it’s fun.

Sometimes we forget our friends in the vegetable kingdom. My friend Jesse Sarber, kindly suggested that I make a carrot to go with my other precious metal vegetables. And so I did, this unique creation is a necklace, made from colored gold and sterling silver. The carrot is made from 9k rose gold and 14k green gold. The central stick is 16k yellow gold, the toggle ring is 14k yellow gold, and the stick chain is sterling silver. I sculpted the carrot and leaf bail in epoxy resin, then cast them using the lost wax method. The sticks for the chain were found in trees, and then cast using the lost stick method. The lost stick method is interesting, as it guarantees that no two pieces will ever be the same. Delicious, free range, organic jewelry, made by my hand, for your enjoyment.



photo credit: Peter Lattimer

robertchaplin (at) lightspeed (dot) ca

-© Robert Chaplin admmx. copy cats are dirty rats