THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506180047
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
As a child on her grandmother's farm in Missouri, Robyn Nichols saw fairies in the woods. The trees were her protectors, and the plants her friends.
At 40, Nichols maintains a close relationship with nature, but expresses it in metal. A top American silversmith, Nichols won best-in-show Saturday at the 40th Annual Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art Show.
The Kansas City, Mo., artist is known for sculpting elaborate botanicals in sterling silver. Her winning work is the 1992 silver ``Morning Glory Sugar Bowl.''
Best in show is a $5,000 purchase prize, which means the sponsor of the show, Virginia Beach Center for the Arts, keeps the work for its permanent collection.
The work had a $6,000 price tag, but Nichols agreed that if the work won, she'd let it go for $1,000 less.
``Where is the winning work?'' patrons asked on Saturday, the show's third day of sunshine and pleasant temperatures.
``At the arts center,'' Nichols told each one. ``But here is the creamer that matches it. And this is the napkin ring.''
Like the sugar bowl, the cone-shaped creamer was propped on a base of gracefully winding tendrils, reminiscent of art nouveau patterns from the turn of the century.
``I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on it,'' she said of the sugar bowl. All aspects of the bowl and lid were painstakingly fabricated from silver sheets and rods, she said.
On the bowl, Nichols used techniques called forging (pounding), repousse (shaping) and chasing (incising lines onto the surface).
``It was a piece I had always wanted to do,'' she said of the trumpet-shaped flower. ``But I didn't feel I had the expertise to do the bloom. They're pretty fascinating, the way they bloom for one day - then they're gone.
``I think I'm fascinated with nature's cycles.''
When Nichols makes a flower, it begins as a flat pattern cut from a silver sheet. As the bloom gets formed, the sections are soldered together.
Will Nichols make another sugar bowl? ``I don't know. It is kind of hard to have the creamer, and no sugar bowl.''
Among her more unusual pieces was a sterling lady slipper orchid that had no function, aside from being a table ornament. She also displayed a sterling drinking straw in the shape of an anthurium bloom.
Passersby asked about a giant ladle in the shape of a hibiscus flower. Nichols picked it up to demonstrate: ``That's a punch ladle - pours 5 1/2 ounces right in your cup!''
Nichols studied design at the Kansas City Art Institute, but taught herself metalworking. By 1975, she was exhibiting in Kansas City galleries. In 1980, she had her first solo show in New York.
Now, her work is collected by major museums, such as Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt Museum.
She participates in few outdoor shows; this was Nichols' first time at the Boardwalk show, which continues today from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ILLUSTRATION: PAUL AIKEN/Staff color photos
Robyn Nichols won best-in-show Saturday at the Virginia Beach
Boardwalk Art Show.
This silver piece by Nichols features sculpted flowers.
by CNB