Unexpected sensations

I'm still thinking about the Gijs Bakker lecture that I went to last night at Harvard University. Trained as a jewelry and industrial designer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in the Netherlands, Bakker is an internationally renowned jewelry and product designer. An avant-garde promoter of cutting edge design, Bakker confounded Droog Design in 1993 with Renny Ramakers, and also founded Chi ha paura…? with Italian gallery owner Marijke Ballanzasca in 1996. Gijs is currently the head of the Masters department at Design Academy Eidhoven.

“Form is just the wrapping of the idea.”

One of the most interesting points that I left the lecture with was the relationship between the object and the human-being; these elements are in constant competition. Or are they symbiotic to each other? I’ve been reading a series of essays on the psychology of objects called Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. This text, edited by Sherry Trukle, articulates the role of objects as emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain relationships, and provoke new ideas.

I’ve been seeing the relationship between people and jewelry as much more intricate, these days. Thinking about the unexpected sensations that jewelry can ignite in the wearer, I've come up with a list of commandments for making:

Endless contamination
Experience
Body language
Irony
Simplicity
Familiar, not so familiar
Use it again
Inevitable ornament