Carol Strick

Artist's Statement
The Egyptians of high antiquity were the unrivalled masters of the jewelry arts. Of all the jewelry produced in the days of the pharoahs, the broad collars were the most outstanding and elegant.

Broad collars were composed of hundreds of small beads which were strung in a such a way they would lay flat, forming a wide, colorful, circular collar which lay across the top of the chest. They were worn by both men and women for some 25 centuries and were so common that they were almost an article of dress in ancient Egypt. Despite their massive appearance, broad collars were light and quite comfortable to wear, even in the hot and humid Valley of the Nile. This was partly due to the space between each bead, but also because most of the broad collars were made of light material. Not only broad collars, but also much of Egyptian jewelry was made from a synthetic ceramic which we today know as faience. Faience is related to glass, but was developed several centuries before glass. It is the first synthetic material made by man.

The lost art of faience was rediscovered by American artist, Carol Strick, in the late 1960's and 1970's. Before Carol Strick went into production there were only two places in the world where faience was being made on a regular basis - Qom, Iran and Qorna, Egypt. After visiting those two places and years of patient research and testing, Strick finally perfected a formula and began producing perfect replicas of the ancient Egyptian jewelry. Her work has been featured at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Just as was true in ancient Egypt, Carol Strick's most spectacular pieces are her broad collars. Each collar requires that she makes hundreds of small tubular beads by hand and then string them in five or six rows. At the end of each collar, a large semi-circular faience plaque, known as the terminal bead, is attached. These terminals finish the collars at the ends, provide some counter-weight at the back of the neck, and allow the wearer to tie the collars at the back. She uses a faience formula and stringing technique similar to that used by ancient Egyptians. Two primary techniques are used, plaster press-molds for amulets and rolling for the beads.