Maya Kini

When at Velvet da Vinci, they gave me a catalog from the New West Coast Design: Jewelry + Metalwork. One of my favorite artist's that I've found from the catalog is Maya Kini.

This piece and the one below are from Kini's thesis show. I love this from her artist's statement: "Words that are the substance of our daily speech but when examined they contain an entire world. It is in this world that the drain resides." The one above is made of cast rubber and iron oxide. The one below is electroformed and enamel.


Above is assorted drains. They are made from gold, copper, and enamel. The one below is a gold drain in an industrial sink. I really love the feel all these objects have. She uses a lot of iron oxide drawings on walls too, in other works on her site. I like that a lot.

Silvia Walz

I like Silvia Walz's peices for their lacelike quality. The piercings were done while studying plants and I like the effect that it has. The enamel is heavy to create a covered in snow effect.

Julia Turner

Also saw Julia Turner at Velvet da Vinci, but I know I've seen her before. Her work is absolutely lovely.
I love her use of wood in her work. The wood looks really beautiful with the metal. I think she uses the materials in really complimentary ways.

I love the African blackwood that she uses in the peice above and the two below. It's so strinking with the gold in the one above.

This one above I think is really unique. Its made of wood, 18k gold, and glass head pins. I like that she carves the wood to resemble a faceted stone, but that the facets aren't pefect and the stone maintains a lot of character. The glass head pins are placed un-uniformly and reminds me of pearls, like on an older brooch where some have been lost.

Turner uses Italian marble in some of her pieces. All the ones pictured on her website are in rings and I think the seetings are unique and interesting.

Katy Hackney

So I just got bakc from California, which was really awesome. I went to Velvet da Vinci and saw a lot of really great stuff. I liked Katy Hackney's work. It's a lot of stylized graphic branches and fun patterns and colors.

This is a brooch by her with the stylized branch I mentioned. Many of her peices at Velvet da Vinci had that branch shape.

This brooch is made from vintage formica, plywood and silver. Many of her peices on her website use vintage formica and I think that it makes each piece really fun. I think that is an good way to get color and pattern in jewelry and I really like the way the silver looks with the formica background.