Metalsmiths such as Fielden understand the transformative magic of silver and of the crucible.
Indeed, when viewing one gorgeous painting titled Crucible, it appears we are looking down into the open mouth of the vessel,
one so deep that it might reach the other side of the earth, as we believed when we were children.

Lapis lazuli, oil, silver, manganese and gesso converge in a crucible of transformation. In this painting, two orbs press against the surface, reaching outward: one dense with lapis, the other drawn in densely reflective silverpoint. Both lie submerged beneath a veil of lapis glaze, where finely ground pigment mingles with rocky particles. The surface holds these forces in suspension as the orbs resist and echo one another: darkness absorbing, blue radiating, silver veiled faintly beneath. A crucible is a vessel: a chamber of heat and pressure, where matter alters yet persists. Crucible is not an image but a site of containment and transformation, a field where stone becomes colour, metal becomes trace and pigment becomes a veil. The work embodies compression rather than release, holding within it the tension of transformation — a stillness charged with the possibility of change.