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John Peacock is a fashion designer's best friend. Over the years, this former BBC costume designer has published a dozen easy-to-use sourcebooks covering 40 centuries of fashion, making them the most comprehensive record of fashion and accessories ever published. Peacock has finally compiled a sourcebook for jewelers as well as designers, and filled its oversized pages with color drawings of representative pieces of jewelry from 1900 to 2000. The presentation is unique and somewhat startling because, instead of glossy photographs of luscious jewelry, each page contains 20 different color drawings, grouped by item and dated. It took years of research using photographs, paintings, and the jewelry itself to produce these 1,500 highly detailed drawings..... (2005) Complete Story
For those of us who get our sustenance from books about jewelry, Ethnic Jewellery is an excellent feed. Its 170 photos of delectable jewelry, commentaries, and maps quickly wafted this reader into daydreams about the bejeweled tribes that left us this priceless legacy. Editor John Mack, Senior Keeper at the British Museum, tackled the daunting task of documenting the traditional jewelry of non-European countries. He did this by inviting eight professors, curators, and trailblazer Oppi Untracht to explain the materials, techniques, and themes characteristic of the region in which the jewelry was made. Mack chose well.... (2005) Complete Story
Jewelers are a restless and inquisitive group. Not content with producing sumptuous jewelry, they spray it with chemicals, dip it in acids or torch it. Just to see what happens. On a good day, what happens is colored metal. However, the unpredictability, potential toxicity, and the subdued color range of these patinas has driven a group of outsider jewelers to experiment with new ways to put color in its place: on sterling, copper, aluminum, and steel. Instead of reaching for chemicals, acid, or heat, these colorists improvise with low-tech materials and experiment with new techniques that welcome spontaneity back into jewelry making.... (2004) Complete Story
In the jewelry world the term cold connections usually describes mechanical joining techniques that are used to fasten together parts that cannot be soldered. In many cases, cold connections fall into a "layer-this-onto-that" approach. Cold connections are more than a roster of techniques - they can trigger new ways to think about design. By combining function, engineering, and aesthetics, cold connections lead us to fresh ideas. The pendant described here has only four parts but it uses three kinds of cold connections.... (2005) Complete Story
Jewelry artist Steff Korsage followed her own determined path to find her own distinct voice, making hollow forms from metal - as individual beads and elements in eye-catching jewelry. One night in 1992, Steff Korsage had an auspicious dream. She dreamed of metal, geometric pieces of metal, filling the sky with their fascinating shapes. Instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, Korsage did what any sensible metalsmith would do..... (2005) Complete Story