New Goal!

I've decided that I will blog about a new artist/awesome jewelry AT LEAST once a week. I will also try and do updates on projects more often, but my main goal is the artist once a week thing. And I know, I know, "but Lizzy, there's less than half a semester left! That's not that many new artists..." Calm yourselves. I'm going to try and keep it up over the summer.

Aran Galligan

Ok, so I can't get any pictures off of Aran Galligan's very lovely website, so you'll all just have to visit it yourself. Personally I really liked the silhouette collection and the open work collection. I just thought they all are really beautiful and interesting. And I think little nice touches. In the openwork section, this one piece is very simple yet decorative (oxymoron?) but then on the back is this very nice pierced out tree. It's all about the details. And I love View From My Window in the Silhouette collection. Layers of pierced out branches. And then there is this:

"There is an interesting line between disgust and intrigue.... My work is the merging of a beautiful object and an uncomfortable thought."

I love it.

Um ok, can I just say that these pieces by Melanie Bilenker are awesome? Cause they are. And I really love the hand drawn quality that they have to them and her style. Except wait. Its hair. So its just like that much cooler. And her artist statement is so perfect. "I secure my memories...I do not reproduce events, but quiet minutes...." I just feel like that is something that I can really connect to, because I like to think about how everyone has their own personal moments all the time that no one could know about. And they don't even have to be like SOMETHING. They can be so tiny but they're still there. The bottom one where she's buttoning her shirt says it all.

Adam Smith

I saw Adam Smith at Acc. He had a bunch of larger, sculptural pieces that I really enjoyed. These pictures are some of his newer work that I found on his website. I love that he has something on the back on the second one, and I just like the overall look of both pieces. I like the faded text in the top piece a lot. Also, check out those nice pin stems.

Christy Klug

I've seen Christy Klug at a couple craft shows and I really like the piercing out that she does. I like the negative spaces that she creates. I also like the scribbling pattern she does on the middle piece. I realize more and more how much I like pierced work and I don't really do it that much..? I should more.

Miel-Margarita Paredes

I saw Miel-Margarita Paredes at Acc in Searchlight. Her work has to do with mounting animals on walls as trophies and the idea of breding animals for certain things. I really like the work, and I find the ideas behind it really interesting. Read her artist statement.

India: Historical Research

These are pages from the book on India that I got from the library.

These are brides. This page is from the section on Marriage jewelry. Nose rings are typical, thoguh certainly not the only piece of jewelry worn for the ceromony.

These two pages contain enameling work. Often, the enamel work is either foral or figure based. These images are foral based b/c that's what I wanted to include in my project.

I'm making a nosering based on my research. It is a piece of marriage jewelry. I want the front of the piece to be fairly traditional. I chased and repoussed shapes to be stones on the front. I enameld them to look like coral, topaz, and an emerald, all of which were common in India. I also enemeld a foral pattern in between the stones. Currently I'm working on some actually sotne settings for the front. The back is etched with an abstracted pattern of a couple symbols. I find it really interesting that the dowry is the only thing that the bride is legally allowed to own once married, and am trying to play off that idea.

Sorry if the pictures are hard to see. It's the best I could do.