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

Object Fetish

My work can now be found at Object Fetish, an internet store that represents progressive jewelry designers from around the world. Check out my page here, and also be sure to look at what other artists are doing.

Triumph at the Studio

It seems like I have been waging war with myself at the studio these days, so I am very glad to have finally resolved this neckpiece! There were many times during the constructin of this piece, that I thought it would never end... and if it did, the ultimate result would not be a good one. This piece is made out of rubber gloves, sterling silver, and baroque pearls. I found the rubber gloves at a hardware store in England, and bought six pairs! They are the most beautiful rubber gloves that I have ever seen. Not only is the color is amazing, but the interior has an antibacterial coating which not only smells like
synthetic flowers, but also has a beautiful green tint to it which really adds a little depth to the piece.

Featured

My work has been featured on the Crafthaus website. Crafthaus is a online community that caters to contemporary craft artists. It's a great website, because it provides a place for designers and craftspeople to communicate and promote the field of contemporty craft. Crafthaus was created by art advocate, Brigitte Martin, of the Pittsburg gallery, Luke & Eloy.

Stones

In The Studio

I've been thinking about light a lot recently, and how light can activate specific reflective materials. I'm trying to work organically, letting these pieces 'grow' on their own. These pieces will change drastically once they are on the body, but I like the sterile quality of the white palate at the moment. They sortof remind me of jellyfish.

Common Things

I recently revisited the work of Pablo Neruda, specifically his poem Odes to Common Things. Below is the last stanza, this excerpt articulates the impact that the objects around us have on our being. I appreciate his adoration of the ordinary, because I believe that there is passion in the mundane.

O irrevocable

river

of things:

no one can say

that I loved

only

fish,

or the plants of the jungle and the field,

that I loved

only

those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.

It's not true:

many things conspired

to tell me the whole story.

Not only did they touch me,

or my hand touched them:

they were

so close

that they were a part

of my being,

they were so alive with me

that they lived half my life

and will die half my death.