ILGIZ F.: It’s All About the Enamel

Katerina Perez: Ilgiz, as a form of introduction, let’s delve back into the distant past when you found yourself in the jewellery business after specialising in painting, silk designs and stained glass.

Ilgiz Fazulzyanov: If we’re going to start with my past, it’s worth pointing out that my education was a very academic one. I’m essentially a painter. Life steered me towards jewellery but there was never enough colour in it for me! As an artist, I long to work with a broad palette of colours because with colour you convey the mood and character of a piece. In 1997 I came across enamel and learnt how to work with it within literally a month. I then redid an entire collection I had intended to display at an antiquarian exhibition in France.

KP: And how was this “trick” of yours technically possible? It can’t be as simple as using watercolours which you just mix with water and then paint with…

IF: In fact, the more I work with enamel, the more I’m convinced that as well as understanding the techniques behind using it, it’s also a matter of instinct, of truly understanding the material. My instincts with enamel are the same as those that people have in everyday interactions. If an artist’s intuition is well-developed, then everything falls into place. Sometimes my colleagues use enamel and it just doesn’t work; it looks cloudy and splits. I then work at it and the problem’s solved. It’s inexplicable, no?

KP: Just listening to you now, I’m starting to realise how complex it all is.

IF: Yes, it isn’t easy working with enamel and it’s even harder working with vitreous enamel. Vitreous enamel requires one of the most refined and tricky techniques in jewellery making: a bottomless chiselled metal ornament is filled with quartz fragments, creating a layer of semi-transparent material. Vitreous enamel is often only used on flat surfaces but by applying the laws of physics and mathematics I was able to change the rules; I could put vitreous enamel on the curved edges of a jewellery piece, on a ring in a tessellated pattern for example.

KP: Can you explain the process in a nutshell for those who know nothing about it?

IF: The enamel is like glass fragments that are crushed to as small a size as possible. A small brush or rod is then used to create a thin layer of it on the surface of a jewellery piece and it is kiln fired for an exact amount of time at an exact temperature.

IF: Firstly, the piece has to be constantly observed whilst in the kiln to know what layer of enamel to apply and at what stage to take it out of the kiln. If the layer is too thick then the colour will be dull; if the quartz is applied too thinly then it’s just impossible to say what will ultimately happen: a red colour, for example, could turn orange. It has to be understood how long the piece should be kept in the kiln and how to cool it: it can be cooled gradually, suddenly, using the usual method or next to the kiln.

KP: As I understand it, enamel is not always perfect by the end of the process. It can break and crack.

IF: It all depends on the type of enamel. Alongside the hot and low temperature (cold) varieties, there are other types which can be hardened under an ultraviolet lamp. They all differ in terms of their durability. The enamels I work with are made at a high temperature. I heat them to a temperature of 950 degrees, allowing the metal and the enamel to join solidly.