Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Friday, February 11, 2011

Gallery (click any photo to view the gallery)

TCHS students used basic tools to shape and size copper rings.

When is silver green? When the metalsmith is an environmentally conscious recycler who saves the shavings in her jewelry-making studio.

Rachel Savane, who shared her art with students at Tates Creek High School, estimated 70 percent of the silver she buys is recycled from old flatware, discarded jewelry and silver dust. The rest comes from mining.

“The scrap I produce, I melt. When the silver melts, it forms a ball. Glance at almost any piece of mine and you’ll see the silver ball. I could send it back to the refiner or I could just use it,” Savane explained to kids in Generation Green, the school’s fledgling environmental club.

The group, which formed in October thanks to a LexArts/LFUCG eco-grant, welcomes guests like Savane about once a month. Topics range from community gardening and sustainability to landscape design. One time, the teens made sketchbooks and journals from old library books. They also sewed T-shirts into shopping bags and decorated socks with handfuls of extra buttons. For Earth Day in April, club members will help with Family Fun Night at the Carnegie Center for Literacy.  

The activities incorporate artwork, poetry and writing with science and environmentalism.

“They’re learning what it really means to ‘go green.’ They’re seeing different ways of what they can do locally,” said science teacher and club adviser Diana Mullins, who noted the teens are building leadership skills and self-confidence, too.

Savane offered several examples of how her business is green. She:

• Uses minimal tools and workspace in her studio and gallery.
• Salvages copper wire from excess cable line.
• Reuses Bubble Wrap and plastic baggies.
• Scoops up excess salt on the snowy sidewalk.

“You can recycle anything as long as you try,” said ninth-grader Tray Von, who joined the green club after a friend’s invitation. “It’s neat she could take that salt and save it for later.”

Classmate German Zanabria was impressed by how the jewelry artisan models concern for the environment, saying, “We all live here, and we have to take care of our own world unless we want to lose it.”

Savane brought along snippets of the salvaged copper to demonstrate how to make a simple ring. Each student in the after-school gathering had a chance to work with the pliers and rawhide mallet to shape and size their piece.

She also showed them variegated chunks of the state rock, Kentucky agate, which she features in a lot of her jewelry.

“There’s no industry behind this stone. Kentucky agate is a pretty green venture because there’s no mining of it. It’s a rock-hound ‘hunt and find’ in creek beds and farms on private property,” Savane said. “The cutting and polishing of it is all done locally.”

Club members listened attentively as Savane described her process, from finding a rock in a stream to marketing an original pendant.

“For me, it’s all about keeping it simple. The more that I can break things down to the basic, the happier I am,” she said.

Savane stressed that students can consciously opt to “go green” no matter their career choice, saying, “Whatever a person does in their life – whatever is their passion – they can spend a little extra time and effort doing what’s best for the environment.”