Formal Elements, Wearable Jewelry

Abstract

In my master's thesis and exhibition entitled Formal Elements, Wearable Jewelry, I explore the creative influences that inspire me to work in this medium. Texture, surface, line and movement contribute to a personal experience with materials and their natural qualities. These formal qualities, when translated into wearable jewelry, captivate and challenge our perception of what jewelry means. They create a visual dynamic and sustain the interest of the human eye. In my work, I often use traditional materials such as gold, silver, copper, steel, both semi-precious and precious stones, and explore their formal qualities. These qualities are heightened by their movement when worn. By the juxtaposition of positive and negative spaces and relief, rough and polished surfaces, I create an emotional connection by the wearer to the jewelry she or he is wearing. I was greatly inspired by travel to Italy while an ECU student. Motifs and images of the Spanish steps in Rome, medieval towns, city walls, and window railings are translated and feature heavily in my recent body of work. Thus travel and movement are most closely intertwined in this work in both formal and conceptual terms. Organic forms deriving from formal and mental landscapes and my intrinsically sculptural sensibility is at the heart of all my work and is seen in the fluidity and movement I try to convey in sculpture for the body. I want the wearer and jewelry to become conjoined, so the act of wearing the jewelry initiates a performance, maybe by fantasy or the activation of a necklace or bracelet by the slightest move of the wearer.