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One of the more difficult challenges Chihiro Makio of 314 Studio in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, faced when creating her Orange Necklace was getting the citrus-themed elements to sit properly on the wearers neck. The piece comprises roughly 30 three-dimensional elements, some shaped like oranges and others like leaves, and deciding how to best get them to sit in harmony with one another took some doing.... (2005) Complete Story
Ivy Solomon combining resin, metal clay, and traditional fabrication techniques, her award-winning pendants are structured around textures and colors in ways that frequently depart from traditional jewelry designs. "When you use stones, you have to design to enhance the stone. The piece is all about the stone," says Solomon. "With metal clay, it its more about texture, because that iss what metal clay does the best"....
(2005) Complete Story
For a long time now in artisan jewelry work, all that glitters is not gold. Precious metals, diamonds, and pearls now have competition. Four Berlin-based designers allow themselves the luxury of blazing new trails with unusual materials such as skin, paper bags, cardboard, plant fibers, glue, felt, and fur. What unites all four of these jewelry designers together is the fact that they learned a traditional artisan craft, but longed to experiment with atypical materials and forms of expression even before they had finished their studies.... (2003) Complete Story
Dulla crochets niobium wire into airy beads and necklaces studded with Swarovski crystals. The result is jewelry that is bright, colorful, and exuberantly joyful. The sheer brightness of her work is even more surprising if you know her personal history. An incest survivor, Dulla has used niobium wire to make sculptures that vividly express the pain of that formative experience, as well as to create bright jewelry that represents her triumph over the past.... (2005) Complete Story
McCreary is no stranger to traditional jewelry making. She took her first job with a jewelry manufacturer in the early 1970s, and spent several years casting, mold making, and model making for jewelers while she studied for her B.F.A. Her current work features clear acrylic with colored lacquer applied to the edges or carved areas, and 22k gold leaf applied over the lacquer. When you look at the piece, mainly what you are seeing is the clear of the acrylic, the whitish translucence, and the 22k gold leaf -- and then the color bleeds out from behind it. It makes the color seem a little more mysterious.... (2005) Complete Story
