High-Karat Gold

Abstract

For commercial jewelers, gold is a commodity. For contemporary goldsmiths, gold is a magical metal that lets them fly higher, faster, more beautifully. The intrinsic value of gold, the market price that is a function of the world’s faith or lack of it, in itself may not be divorced from gold’s real qualities. It is priced high because it is desirable, and it is desirable because it allows artists to do things that no other metal can do nearly so well. Gold is not merely beautiful, although it is undeniably beautiful. It is also ductile, the most malleable of metals. It may be stretched and pounded and drawn into the finest, thinnest, narrowest of forms, yet it retains its essential qualities. It may be cast, or die struck, or forged, or hammered; yet, with a flick of a cloth, its luster returns. It is impervious to all acids, save sulfuric acid, guaranteeing that it will survive the hazards of time. It tells us the story of our own history through objects that have escaped its only enemy: being melted down and transformed into something else.