Welcome to the February 2026 issue of my newsletter!

The days are getting longer and I'm starting to see a little green on some of the tree buds. We are getting close to one of my two favorite times of year - spring! The other favorite is summer, with its long days of light and warmth, but there's something about spring that pretty much puts it at the top. Every day brings a little more green into the land around me, a few more birds singing in the morning, frogs courting in the night. There's energy all around as things come back to life after the dreary dark days of winter. That goes for me too! I always feel more energy, both physical and creative, in the spring.

Barbara Kay Jewelry News

Even with spring on the horizon, I've been a little slow with making new jewelry, although I have made quite a few made-to-order pieces that are now in their owners' hands. I do have most of the bits and pieces sawn out for the jewelry designs I showed you last month... so I am moving along! Here are a few of those bits.

Upcoming shows:

​La Center Arts Fair: May 9 at the Holley Park in La Center, from 9AM to 5PM. There will be all kinds of activities for the whole family, including music and dance performances, as well as people selling a wide variety of handmade arts and crafts (including me). I should add here that if you are a creator and would like to sell at a fun fair, there are still open spots available for this one! Go to lacenterarts.org to reserve a spot.

Washougal Arts and Music Festival has changed their date so it no longer competes with the Vancouver Festival - Washougal's will take place on August 1, while Vancouver's will be on the following weekend. I have applied to participate in both but probably won't know whether I've been accepted until May or possibly even early June.

Bronze

With the price of silver sky-rocketing, a lot of jewelers have started turning to other metals for some of their jewelry. One of those metals is bronze. I love bronze. It is warm and earthy, and it is very hard, so I'm able to saw out little figural pieces with sharper details than, say, copper. It can look almost like gold when it is polished up, but also ages to a lovely patina. And it is the eighth anniversary metal.

Here are a few bronze bangles, all polished up. Isn't the color beautiful?! Click the picture to see them in the shop.

I've been using bronze, as well as copper and very occasionally brass, ever since I began metal-smithing fourteen or so years ago. I use it by itself for some of my earrings and for bangles. I have used it as the back plate for pendants and plan to begin doing so again here and there as an alternative to silver. And I use it all the time for artistic elements in my mixed metal pendants, like the little mice in this pendant. You can see the slight difference between the bronze mice and the copper leaves and grass. Both the bronze and copper are antiqued and polished. Click on the image to see more pictures of this pendant in the shop.

Bronze is an alloy of about about 88% copper and 12% tin, with maybe a few other trace minerals. It has an ancient history.

Prior to the discovery of bronze, copper had already been smelted and shaped into various tools and implements. It's really not known exactly when or how bronze was discovered - whether by accident or on purpose - but at some point between 2500 and 3000 BC (some historians believe even earlier) someone combined copper, tin and originally a little arsenic and came up with bronze. Bronze was harder, at least as durable, and easier to cast than either copper or tin by itself. Once people realized all of its properties, they moved away from copper tools and weapons and began using bronze instead. The Bronze Age had begun.

As well as being used for functional implements during this time, bronze was also used for jewelry. Here are two Greek bracelet cuffs that date back to between 2300 and 2800 BC.

This next picture shows a beautiful bronze necklace element that is believed to be from the Hungarian region. It dates to anywhere from 800 to 2500 BC. You can see the green patina that bronze often gets over time. Although technically this is a form of corrosion, it actually becomes a protective coating that keeps the bronze from deteriorating. I should mention that there is another type of green corrosion ("bronze disease") that is actually not something you want to see on bronze. It appears as a rough green powder (similar to rust but bright green) that rubs off easily from the metal. The desirable green patina is smooth, hard, fairly uniform and does not rub off.

I found this next picture to be really interesting. It shows that bronze jewelry was sometimes mass produced rather than always being hand fabricated one at a time. This picture shows an iron mold on the left - it has two sides but only one is showing. The mold dates to around 600-500 BC and comes from Sippar, which was the ancient city of Babylonia, southwest of present day Baghdad in central Iraq. In the center are clay imprints made from each side of the mold, and on the right are modern bronze neck rings also made using this mold.

The Bronze Age ended around 1200-1100 BC, when the Iron Age began. Iron was abundant, while tin, needed for bronze production, was not. Various conflicts had caused trade routes to be disrupted, stopping the flow of tin. This pushed craftsmen to look at other metals, in particular iron. But while iron and later steel replaced bronze for things like weapons and tools, bronze continued to be used for many things, both functional and decorative. Because iron corrodes easily, bronze also had an important place in industries where metal is exposed to corroding elements, such as in architecture and on ships.

During the middle ages, bronze items began to be produced by large industries, as compared to the small workshops of earlier. Specialized guilds created all sorts of things, from church bells to astronomical instruments. New casting methods were developed to simplify the process. Bronze was also used for coins, in particular in Asian countries, as well as for musical instruments.

During the Renaissance, artists and sculptors embraced bronze for its ability to keep sharp details when cast, as well as its durability.

Now, bronze is still used in a variety of industries and technologies. And of course it is still highly desirable in art and architecture where it is viewed as a symbol of permanence and wealth.

Although bronze is currently not a common metal in jewelry, it is gaining in popularity. I love it. I love the history of it, the buttery golden glow it has when it is freshly polished as well as the warm earthy colors it gets as it ages. It has an intrinsic value that I don't think copper by itself has, or that other alloys such as brass has. It brings to mind valuable statuary and Austrian bronze figurines. It's really a wonderful metal!

One interesting fact is that bronze has some naturally occurring antimicrobial properties, so it can kill harmful viruses and bacteria that live on it.

I will say that some peoples' skin reacts to bronze. This is due to the copper content, so if your skin tends to get green where it touches copper jewelry, you may find that happening with bronze as well. This can be avoided by keeping your skin dry and by putting a thin coating of wax on the bronze. The wax will actually will keep the metal from darkening as quickly too. You can also stick to wearing bronze earrings which don't usually touch the skin much.

These feather earrings on the left are not yet in the shop but will be soon as made-to-order. The hammered earrings on the right can be seen in the shop by clicking on the image.

I'm going to end this article by saying that for some reason bronze sheet metal has gotten harder to find. Perhaps because of that, there is now sheet metal being sold as bronze that is actually brass made to look redder than the typical yellow brass color. Both brass and bronze are copper alloys, but the secondary metal is different. Bronze is copper and tin. Brass is copper and zinc. One such metal being sold is called "Commercial Bronze" which is actually brass with extra copper to create a redder look. A number of jewelers that I know make "bronze" jewelry with this metal. They describe the jewelry as being made with bronze.

I personally don't feel that it should be called bronze, and I wouldn't use it without naming it as a type of brass. I know for some the difference is negligible, but I guess I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to some things. What do you think? If you buy something, whether for yourself or as, say, an eighth anniversary gift - would you want it to be truly bronze? Or would it matter if it's really brass but looks like bronze? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Stone of the Month: Petrified Wood

These are just a few of many pieces of petrified wood I have found. They catch my eye, kind of like agates do, and I just have to pick them up when I see them. And then, of course they go into my pockets and head home with me, where they end up on a window sill or in my studio as photo props. Of course, these would likely not find themselves in any jewelry.

But there are a lot of very beautiful types of petrified wood and root material that do get made into cabochons, and then into jewelry.

Petrified wood is formed when the organic molecules in the wood is replaced with inorganic materials, usually a form of silica such as quartz, chalcedony (agate) or sometimes opal. In order for this to happen, certain things have to take place. The tree has to die and fall in a place where it becomes covered fairly quickly so exposure to air is removed. This might happen during volcanic action when the tree gets covered by ash; it can also happen in swampy areas where mud creates the covering. Lack of exposure to oxygen slows decomposition way down.

During the next million years or so, two processes take place if all conditions are right: permineralization and replacement. Permineralization is when minerals collect in spaces where the organic material has broken down and has washed away. Replacement is when the organic material is very slowly dissolved and actually replaced by other minerals.

Trees are made up of cellulose and lignin. The lignin acts as a binder for the cellulose; it is water resistant and takes much longer than the cellulose to decompose. During the petrification process, the cellulose breaks down first and is replaced with other minerals while the lignin helps the wood keep its shape. Eventually it also disappears and is replaced. At that point the wood has become rock.

Sometimes pieces of petrified wood are said to be "agatized" or "opalized". This simply indicates that the silica minerals that replaced the organic materials were either agate or opal. Opalized petrified wood will be somewhat softer than agatized wood. Sometimes there are visible sections of agate or opal showing; this is where permineralization took place.

Here's an example of one of my chunks of petrified wood that shows where agate or quartz has filled in a gap. There are even some glittery crystals in there!

Here are a few pretty agatized petrified wood cabochons created by Laurie Gates Engelhardt (photos courtesy of Laurie):

And one example of opalized wood. Often opalized wood shows beautiful blues and greens mixed in with the more typical browns of the original wood.

I don't currently have any petrified wood jewelry - something I need to rectify. Here are a couple of pendants I made a few years ago. The one on the left features a petrified wood cabochon (lapidary work by Laurie Gates Engelhardt). The one on the right features a petrified palm root cabochon (lapidary work by Sherri Dougan).

I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see in future newsletters.

Sources used for this issue's articles:
Bronze:
​The History of Bronze - https://bronzeconnection.com/history-of-bronze/​
The Beginnings of Bronze - Copper Development Association Inc https://copper.org/education/history/60centuries/raw_material/thebeginnings.php​
Brian D. Colwell-Industrial Metals - A Complete History of Bronze: From the Ancient Era to Today https://briandcolwell.com/a-complete-history-of-bronze-from-the-ancient-era-to-today/​
​Renaissance Genuine Solid Bronze - Beauty and Prestige: A Brief History of Bronze in Art and Architecture https://rgsbronze.com/beauty-prestige-a-brief-history-of-bronze-in-art-and-architecture​

Petrified Wood:​
University of Waterloo Earth Sciences Museum - Petrified Wood https://uwaterloo.ca/earth-sciences-museum/resources/detailed-rocks-and-minerals-articles/petrified-wood
​Ebsco Knowledge Advantage - Petrified Wood https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/earth-and-atmospheric-sciences/petrified-wood
​Library of Congress Everyday Mysteries - What is Petrified Wood? https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/earth-sciences/item/petrfied-wood/​