Ed Waskiewicz's creations
Practical and stunning solution to
jewelry storage.
By Suzanne Stempek Shea
Maybe graduation day brought a procession of jewelry to your door. Perhaps Mother's Day meant a parade of necklaces and earrings and pins. And were all those pieces of wearable art too tempting to pass up at every one of those summer craft shows you attended?
If you're finding yourself loaded down with buckets of baubles, and have nowhere to store them, Ed Waskiewicz has one of the most beautiful answers to your dilemma.
The Westfield metal artist has created a one-of-a-kind home for all those gems and jewels you've collected over the past few months and years. His multi-metal castle, with drawers, hooks, dishes and stands hiding behind each door and wall, is one of the most royal ways to store all your finery.
In between showings, the 20-inch-tall 18-by 18-inch-wide showpiee is where Waskiewicz's wife, sharon stows all her adornments. And though she'd love to see the $11,500 piece sell tomorow, she'll miss it dearly when it goes.
"I'm spoiled rotten." she laments. "Go and try to find a jewelry box that's going to hold all this!"
Drop the drawbridge to reveal drawers for flat storage. Open the turrets to expose hooks for necklaces and cups for earrings and pins. Raise the roof to see the mirror, and more storage.
The castle is the third such building-inspired storage piece created by Waskiewicz, a 40-year-old Ludlow native who majored in English at Framingham State College.
As a boy, Waskiewicz was inspired by his father to work with his hands. But when son Ed was unable to duplicate the fine craftsmanship of woodworker father Ed, he turned to another medium.
"I started with wires, which I soldered, then went on to sheet metal." he recalled.
Now Waskiewicz works in his beloved non-ferrous metals, those non-rusting copper, brass and stainless steel that he shapes in metal-bending mechanisms called "breaks" and that he forms further with tools including a selection of 25 hammers.
Working with the palette of rose copper, golden brass and white steel, he turns out delicate birds alighting on lifelike branches; sturdy lighthouses shining their elicrified beacons from atop metal rocks; carousel horse-inspired coat racks. And the most outstanding, scuptures including the castle, that hold so many hidden treasures.
Sharon Waskiewicz, who's a registered nurse in labor and delivery at Baystate Medical Center, pitches in by doing the paperwork and by assisting at the seven high-quality craft shows the couple attends annually, including the prestigious Spring Crafts Park Avenue at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, at which pieces like the castle jewelry box are examined by shoppers of the income level that makes its pricetag easy to swallow.
"The guy who bourhg the first one," Sharon Waskiewicz remembered, "his wife came back and told us how 'He was so nice - he filled every little drawer with a bauble!' "
The prices reflect the workmanship and time involved. The first jewelry box, a Victorian house, went for $8,500. The castle represents a little more than four months of work, including making cardboard mockups that were the providing ground for all the many movable pieces.
Though he's been receptive to inquiries from prospective customers interested in having their homes immortalized in three-dimensional metal detail, Waskiewicz has used free rein in the structures he's built to date.
"I basically just took elements from different buildings and put them together," he said.
"What I try to do with my work is make something unique, different." Waskiewicz said. I'm always seeing something, and as I develop certain techniques, like rocks for the lighthouse. The work is always growing, and I'm happy I'm doing the things I want to do."
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