ELISE GOLDIN

A jewelery collection where the pieces bond two or more people together, to force interaction amongst the participants in a society where we are becoming increasingly void of real human interaction.

This morning I've been wasting time skimming the back-logs of some blogs that I like to read... when I came upon the work of Elise Goldin. Elise is a multidisciplinary designer, focusing primarily on creating artifacts and functional objects. She combines a bold aesthetic quality with unique materials to articulate her ideas. Her explorations with process, technique, and material enable her to create contemporary works that require the active involvement of the viewer.

I came across her 'Knotted Collection,' and clearly fell in love. She has used the laser cutting process to create smaller knotted links, then these rope like units are strung together to create wearable pieces. Her idea for this series started with the desire to physically bond two people together, therefore creating the more couture pieces pictured below. Eventually this concept evolved into a more wearable series like the chest plate pictured to the right.

I appreciate the graphic quality of her work, the knots reference old 'how-to' maritime diagrams. I also appreciate her ability to move beyond the smaller individual units and link the pieces together to create larger pieces that also reference historical pieces of jewelery. By moving the utilitarian into the realm of the decorative she has allowed the viewer to focus on the beauty of the alternative.