Ash Tamber
Feral Blue is a one-woman show based mostly in Richmond, Virginia. Over the years you could find me working on the road at events, in community jewelry studios, or out of my ‘95 Econoline Camper Van in other parts of the country.
Working with metal is in my blood. Machinists. Welders. Steel mill workers. I started as a silversmith because metal felt like a timeless way to tell a story. I stuck with it because it kept revealing more. What began as adornment evolved into something deeper—objects, insights, and strategies that help people find their own rhythm and live by it.
For almost a decade I’ve been teaching silversmithing classes to adults at The Visual Arts Center of Richmond. I didn’t expect to love teaching as much as I do. Sharing what I know and helping others find clarity caused me to examine my methods. The more I taught, the more I noticed that the tools I used outside the studio—astrology charts, creative systems, planners—were just as valuable as the ones on my bench.
Currently, I’m giving my body a break and am on hiatus from making production jewelry work. I’m taking on limited, meaningful custom pieces during this time. Today, Feral Blue is a home for symbolic design, creative insight, and practical strategy.
Here’s what I offer:
Creative Consulting from teaching to one-on-one meetings about the business side of creativity.
Personal Insight through astrology readings to recognize your personal patterns.
Ritual Tools like the planners, calendars, sheets, etc. I created for myself that I share to help you get organized.
Active Adornments because I’ll never completely stop making things out of metal—they just have to have meaning!
Field Notes to share my writing work and reflections.
As a creative person, wrangling yourself can be tough. The key is to find your rhythm and design your business around it. When you’re ready to align your creative work with who you really are, I’d love to help. I strive to offer different financial levels of assistance—poke around and see what resonates.
Feral Blue Jewelry
Feral Blue is one-of-a-kind and limited production sterling silver jewelry and metal accessories. It often features semi-precious stones or enamel work. I enjoy working outside the parameters of jewelry and creating small metal functional objects. In using engraving techniques I add another layer of deliberate line work into my illustrative pieces to showcase my abilities as an artist and storyteller. Like many artists, drawing was my first love. My engraving is done by hand with primitive tools that allow for maximum portability.
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Feral differs from wild, which is a popular notion. Feral moves by intuition and nature, not by boredom, courage, or rebellion. Though curious, a feral creature is not always inherently brave; they’re pulled by a knowing from their ancestry. Feral creatures were bred to be domesticated, yet display how close they are to their roots.
Blue is a color that is omnipresent. For me, there is a love/hate with Blue, as it's sometimes the thoughtless go-to color of clothes and boring walls. The word itself has many meanings---from the ethers of life's beginnings to the deepest emotions and unknowns. It’s the duality of bland and mysteriousness that creates intrigue. "Blue is beauty, not truth. 'True blue' is a ruse, a rhyme; it's there, then it's not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color." -Christopher Moore