STORY
The discovery of a treasure
« My attraction to glass goes back to my childhood; my grandmother used to keep old crystal decanter stoppers in an old metal box. In my childish daydreams, this box became, in turn, the pirates' treasure, the trunks filled with precious stones from Ali Baba's cave or the sumptuous gift offered to the princess.
Glass, a noble and mysterious material, combining all the opposites, is a material to create, to dream...
It is moreover the anagram of it. »
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Alsace in 1968, Daphné Binckli entered the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg after graduating. There she first experimented with glass paste, through a series of sculptures combining glass, metal and wood. She also discovered the techniques of jewelry creation in the school's goldsmith workshop. After graduating in 1991, she moved to the south of Alsace where she completed her training in glass blowing with a cane.
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In 2003, Daphné started working with glass called "à la flamme", a technique necessary for the jewelry she wanted to create. The following year she created her workshop in a small village in the vineyards. Over the days and a patient research, the glass and the flame intermingle under her fingers, giving life to her dreams: delicate and poetic jewels.
THE TECHNIQUE
The spun glass
The glass, in the form of rods, is heated with the flame of a flashlight:
the end melts and is then stretched into a thread of molten glass.
This is then wound in successive layers on a metal rod: the mandrel.
Once the bead has cooled, the mandrel is removed and the hole is made to thread the bead.
The pearl is then annealed in an oven to level out the tensions, then cleaned and finally mounted as a jewel.
The artist tries to extract all the mystery from this very technical know-how and from the meeting between the flame and the glass, each bead sheltering a little of this alchemy.