DC Silver

Ana Tkabladze On a warm May evening in old town Alexandria, a small silver shop is buzzing with activity. There is excitement in the air and the ice-cold Cha Cha is flowing. Ana Tkabladze has a show. The entrance hall is jammed and people spill out into the historic brick-lined street. Inside, there is a bar, but more importantly, Ana's work is upstairs. Working in any medium to produce art is difficult, but Ana works in multiple: silver and enamel, and also gold and gemstones. She is also facile working in copper. Combining materials in this way has challenges in spades, and those multiply when one of them is enamel. The smith must first anneal the metal properly, hitting the right temperatures to shape and texture the material (which differs with the type of metal) without causing later structural issues. Even then when everything is executed perfectly, to add enamel is literally another layer of extreme complexity. Each piece carefully laid out in advance and the...

Howard Street in Baltimore at one time was known as one of the mid-Atlantic's hottest antiques markets. I went out today to survey the scene. It was a place where women wore white gloves in the streets. As the dealers there tell it today, there was the installation of the rail line in the street in 1992 that really hit them hard, and it never truly recovered. At that time, nearly 42 dealers led a bustling trade that spilled out onto the sidewalks. Today there are 7 or 8 active dealers. As I passed by the Imperial Half Bushel was packing things up for good at 831 N. Howard. It was a storied antiques store with a penchant for local Baltimore silver and many other items. They rebuffed me when I tried to enter the shop. Baltimore has things in common with Philadelphia and New Orleans. Economically polarized and not much leadership from politicians, a failing educational system, a flagging tax base. This has been much commented on by Washington area antiques dealers, who grow a bit m...