Nature & Place | What Shapes the Work

Nature, Understood. Forged into Silver.

In the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, Sterling Roots builds hand-forged jewelry directly from lived experience in the landscape. Every piece begins as raw silver, shaped at the bench through disciplined tool work — heated, formed, soldered, filed, and refined by hand. Nature is not applied as decoration; it is studied for structure and translated into enduring metalwork. Leaves, bark, feathers, and florals are rendered with precision, carrying weight, texture, and permanence in silver.

The Wild, Forged with Discipline

The natural world holds structure that requires no simplification. A trillium from stem to petal. An aspen leaf with inch-worm marks intact. Dragonflies shaped with tension and lift preserved. Sterling Roots approaches these forms with silversmith discipline, not interpretation. At the bench, silver is forged, sawn, soldered, and refined until the surface carries the same specificity found outdoors. The result is realism in metal — shaped through mastery and steady hand-forged practice.

Feathers as Signature Work

Feathers remain a defining Sterling Roots specialty and a continuation of lineage. Found along wooded trails and studied for their architecture, each barb and ridge is translated into silver through disciplined handwork. Nothing is abstracted. Nothing is reduced to symbol. What begins as something fleeting becomes enduring metal, forged and shaped with the same seriousness as any traditional silversmith form. Feather work stands as signature realism — built at the bench with precision and permanence.