Jade Herail

BFA ’20 Metal Design

My name is Jade Herail, and I am a metals major at East Carolina University. I have always been into art ever since I was little, before I even started school. My art classes were always my favorite classes, and I knew I wanted to go to college for art. I went into college, thinking I was going to be a graphic design major with a possible minor in illustration. However, I ended up taking a metals class and absolutely loved the more hands-on style of art since I am not a fan of technology. I loved learning the different techniques and processes to create things in metal. Techniques like soldering, riveting, sawing, wax carving to casting, roller printing, and stone setting. All of these help me to bring my ideas for my pieces to life. Seeing my pieces come to life is an amazing thing. A lot of my pieces tend to have to do with nature or patterns that show up in nature. I have created pieces that show lightning patterns that I hammered into the surface and pieces that have the roller printed texture of the veins in leaves. You will see a few pieces in my show that include these processes I have mentioned in my coffin box piece. I roller printed skeleton leaves onto the individual sides. My vessels all include textures that were hammered into the surface. Another common theme in my work is the use of liver of sulfur, a type of patina that turns the metal black, and it can be polished off the high surfaces to make the grooves of the pieces more shadowed, giving the piece more depth. You’ll notice this used on all my pieces in my show and be able to see how it really improves their depth visually.