ZELIME GILLESPIE MATTHEWS INCARNATE WORD PINS

An exclusive, sold only at Incarnate Word.

Award-winning San Antonio artist Zelime Gillespie Matthews has created these four special pins exclusively for Incarnate Word.

Three of the pins are 2 ¼” x 1” [red, copper, gold] and one is 3” x 2” [silver with colorful flowers at the base]. Each brilliant metallic finish plastic pin is handmade, features the Incarnate Word steeple, and all are absolutely guaranteed to generate joy. They are exceedingly light in weight; easy to wear on jackets (women's or men's) or on the sheerest silks. Professionals, teachers, health care workers and other extraordinary citizens all love wearing Zelime’s pins. They are excellent gifts and are perfect to introduce your personality to the rest of the world.

“Inventing a design is the fun part,” Zelime says. “But cutting out the tiny jots and curls of plastic that become fish scales, bluebonnet petals, and other micro components accounts for about 90 percent of her time. There just doesn't seem to be a faster way to do it," she says. Brooches average 20 pieces per design, many only slightly larger than the head of a pin.

Assembly is the next stage. Working from templates, she starts with the largest or most basic piece: a steeple, an angel's robe, a turtle's shell. Then comes the delicate work of placing smaller pieces above and below this "chassis"; the medium and the process will support up to four layers. Though the designs are standardized, the pieces are all handmade.

Once Matthews is satisfied with a composition, it goes into the oven on a china plate. "The trick is to remember that it's in there," she says. Like cookies, overcooked pieces change color, starting at the edges. When they're just right, the layers melt evenly and the colors stay true. Once the piece is done, she puts it into a refrigerator. The appliances were added recently; before that, hers was truly a home-cooked enterprise, from the kitchen stove to the dining-room table.

She invested in studio appliances because her husband, John, "thinks kitchens are for cooking and dining rooms are for eating," she says, shaking her head.

Once the pieces are cooled, they harden and are ready for her signature in gold script on the back, where metal fasteners are also affixed.

$25 each plus $2 postage and handling. On sale in the Alumni Office: lisas@uiwtx.edu