What is a medallion?
by Chamroeun Yin

The medallion that students will be making is simplified and adapted from the design that Chamroeun uses. This essay describes the process he goes through making just one part of the dance costume.

A medallion is a big piece of jewelry that is used as a necklace. They are used for decoration in Cambodian dance. In the old days, when the dance was part of the royal court, the medallions were made from gold, or else from silver which was gold-plated. These pieces of jewelry became part of the dance costumes and added to the beauty of the dance.

Nowadays, the medallions are still used for decoration in the dance costumes, but we don't make them out of gold or silver any more. Some people use other cheaper metal like copper for a base. I made up my own process here in the United States because if I dance, I want everything to look just right. When we dance, usually only women and boys and girls wear the medallions. Men only wear the medallions if they are playing a non-human part, like if they are a bird, or a spider.

How to make a medallion
When I make a medallion for my costume, first, I take my medallion design and trace the design onto mat board, which is a very heavy, thick kind of cardboard. I use a hammer and a chisel to cut out each piece. You cannot use a blade or scissors to do this because the mat board is too thick. I glue each piece in order, one on top of the other. When I am done, the five pieces glued on top of each other make five layers. When the glue is dry, I take a kind of clear paint called acrylic and cover the whole medallion piece. This helps the different pieces stay together and makes the pieces stronger too. After the acrylic dries, I use a hammer and chisel to cut out the holes in the pieces. After the holes are cut, I paint on another coat of acrylic paint and wait for it to dry.

Making the beads for the top of the medallion is very hard. First, I carve out pieces of wood into the shape of the beads I want to use. Then I roll out some oil clay. I press the wooden beads into the oil clay to make a mold. When I take the wooden beads out, there is a hole in the clay. I fill the hole with plaster and wait for the plaster to dry. When the plaster is dry, I take out the plaster beads and file the edges down so they are smooth. Then I lay the plaster beads out on a plate and brush the plate with latex, which is kind of like rubber. When the latex dries, I can peel the whole thing off of the plate and it becomes a rubber mold that I can use over and over again to make plaster beads.

When the plaster beads are dry, the edges need to be filed down, and then the beads are glued into the design of the medallion. I coat the whole piece with acrylic again to make it solid and water resistant. Once the acrylic is dry, I cover the piece with yellow acrylic paint, and then with gold paint. When the gold paint dries, I cover the whole thing with gold leaf. There are 2 kinds of gold leaf - imitation and real gold leaf. When you use real gold leaf, it's easy because the gold leaf breaks into small pieces and these pieces can be pressed onto the medallion. Imitation gold leaf is more like foil. When it sticks as a whole sheet, you can see the creases and cracks. If I use imitation gold leaf, I have to fill in all those places where there are cracks. After that, I varnish it to seal the whole piece. When it is dry, I place rhinestones into the designs.

Finally, I take the medallion and put it on some yellow or gold colored cord with some large wooden beads that I also have painted gold. After all that, the medallion is ready to wear.

back to lesson 4 (K-4)