Category Archives: Other artists

Other artists I admire.

photo shoot!!

https://vimeo.com/260884774

I was invited to participate in a photoshoot! I’ve never done one before, so all the action was super interesting for me. The videos were shot & assembled by Glitch Films.

The behind-the-scenes video is also really cool:

https://vimeo.com/260884597

I’m even in it! I feel he captured my natural flailiness quite well.

More after the click: Continue reading

my rings are in a bridal magazine!

My rings in Weddings Unveiled Magazine

Ooh la la! I really need to shake my photography paradigm up a bit; I love the way the photographer staged the photo with the heart-shaped leaf.

So yeah! I got an email from a couple I made some rings for and their friend put together a wedding spread for the magazine Weddings Unveiled and she put my rings in it! I’m in the current (Winter 2013) issue, pages 90-93. I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t bother to credit the brilliant genius who made the rings (cough cough) but I suppose it’s made up for by the fact that that the rings are at least in a tasteful, nay, downright awesome spread.

Victorian solitaire & wedding band

You can see the full set of photos from the shoot here. Pretty gorgeous; I rather love the raw edges of the wedding dress.

more cool first lady jewels

Michelle Obama's jewelry

I like the entire ensemble here: Ralph Lauren dress, Tom Binns necklace and bracelet, but most of all, I like the ring. It’s by Yewn and has a jade center stone with a distinctive squared silhouette and a pave lattice motif. Like this:

Yewn jade lattice ring

I do like this ring. The necklace is pretty cool too.

Tom Binns necklace

This isn’t the exact one but it has a similar look. It is made from silver, and crystal stones possibly? The asymmetrical tangle look is nice and makes the dress a little more rock and roll.

Tom Binns necklace

Here she is on another occasion wearing a necklace by the same designer.

Michelle Obama's kick-ass earrings

And I included a pic of Michelle Obama’s outfit at a state dinner at Buckingham palace. Tom Ford dress and supercool dangle drop earrings. I can’t find any information on the designer of these but I like the thorny-looking motif and the large briolette drop. Possibly diamond? I’d like that. Maybe not though; it could also be rock crystal or aquamarine..

first jewels

Oh my poor, poor neglected blog. Sorry folks for the dramatic pause in pretty pictures.. I have actually been very busy and have not had enough function left in my brain to keep my blog populated. I bought a “fixer” house, moved, had a nasty bout of colds/flues that rampaged through the household, tore apart and remodeled the bathroom, and now am working on the kitchen. And we had family visiting. And I got way behind in my orders doing all of this.. (But I’m caught up now!) Whew. Onward.

I have a number of custom pieces I have made over the past few months and I will get them posted here over the next week. For now, I just wanted to point out how amazingly cool Michelle Obama’s jewelry was at the recent Correspondent’s Dinner. I usually think her formal ensembles are pretty great and whatnot but this time her jewelry picks were completely AWESOME AWESOME and AWESOME!!!

Michelle Obama's jewelry ensemble for the 2011 Correspondent's Dinner

The three layered necklaces. The pewter color scheme here is really nice and unusual and goes well with the dusty purple color of her dress. All pieces are pretty sweet: the chain lariat choker that hangs over the lower necklace of interesting metal beads.. But what really makes this for me though is the heavy cable chain on top. Too cool.

Michelle Obama's jewelry ensemble for the 2011 Correspondent's Dinner

Here’s a close up of the bracelet stack. Snakes! I love it when people wear snake jewelry.

(I have no idea who designed any of this; if anyone does, please mention it in the comments for me? Thanks!)

Michelle Obama's jewelry ensemble for the 2011 Correspondent's Dinner

The entire ensemble. Did I mention how awesome I think this is? Check out her snake ring too. The earrings are whatevs; I don’t have anything to say about them.

Anyway, I was super impressed with her jewelry choices (her stylist’s jewelry choices? Does she select her own clothing/jewelry for functions like these? I really have no idea how these things work) and I think she looked flipping gorgeous.

EDITED: I found out who the jewelry designer was: Irit Design for all pieces, including the earrings. Sterling silver and diamonds! LOVE it all!

lee mcqueen’s last collection

I’ve followed fashion peripherally; mostly I just want to seem some pretty pictures and if I’m lucky, there’s some neat jewelry too (but usually not). Lee Alexander McQueen killed himself this past February and here are some images from his last collection (which was shown after his death).

They are downright breathtaking. Like jewels.

The random but nicely symmetrical scattering of design is something I can fall to pieces over. This is what I love most about people like Renee Lalique (and there is a lot to love about the dude, my link is but one paltry example; do a google image search and be blown away).

All models had these austere head-dresses covering their hair and ears. This one has a feather mohawk (I have a complete picture of the mohawk down below) but most were just the head covering.

Pretty textures. I like the scrunchy rough texture of the gauzy translucent bunched fabric (I’m sure it has a name) and then the smooth silky weight of the outer layer (look at the veiny texture). I have an affinity for crazy contrasted with constricting. (No alliteration intended.)

O. M. G. I Love This. Are they real feathers painted gold? I would love to think they were actually gold feathers. Or even real feathers sprayed with real gold paint… From a jewelry standpoint, they have a look like gold (14K or maybe 18K) patinaed with age. You so rarely see gold patinaed but I love the look and have been experimenting with it myself.

I’m freaking out over the print of skrinkled drapey fabric over perfectly smooth silhouette. Funny that it makes even real folds and shadows incorporated into the art. (You see the wings?) This is where I start to flail over which one is really my favorite…

…because oooh oooh oooh oooh ooh! How cool is this?!?

Holy cats! Or this?!? The dress goes on to be light and foamy and fluffery through the full-length skirt.

Heavy pomegranite silk. With intricate gold embroidery. I love this. Seriously, this would take me a zillion years to make (…if I knew how to sew and embroider and all that).

Here’s that headdress I was talking about. A golden feather mohawk!

And right at the point where I get super excited about this artist—I do the same thing when I discover a great new-to-me author, and go to search out what other books have been written and enthuse over what is to come… And then I remember that the man who created this is now dead; there is no more coming. It’s a sad, depressing thing, and makes you wonder what goes on in the minds of brilliant people. I don’t often get choked up over people I didn’t know personally who have died (there are very, very many, after all). But it happens.

All images and many more (plus greater detail) from here.

jewelry artist: shinji nakaba

Shinji Nakaba ring

This is my current favorite jewelry artist. Everything the guy makes pretty much blows me away. I LOVE the classical carvings and the use of unconventional materials (PVC pipe, epoxy, steel mesh, pet bottles, beer cans, the man makes a kick-ass brooch out of a plastic Asahi beer cap). I don’t see a whole lot of carving in jewelry.

Shinji Nakaba ring

[Agate, 18K gold] This was a ring that got chipped and returned for repair. The gold part is the repair. How awesome is it that the repair makes the ring even better than it was originally.

Shinji Nakaba Ring

[Stainless Steel Wire Mesh, epoxy , coral]

Shinji Nakaba Ring
Seashell, 18K gold (carved body ring)

When I was a kid I used to have these weird half-awake sensory dreams. Usually there was something impossibly massive in magnitude competing with something supernaturally calm or smooth. This translated into many different scenarios in my childish mind: A massive freight train screaming and clanging so loud about to blast through the wall of my room. Galaxies of unidentified hugeness trying to force its way through a hole the size of a pinhead. When I was young, the dreams really frightened me but as I grew older, I gained control of them and sort of had fun tripping out on them. They grew less frequent in my late teens and I had my last one my second year of college. I missed them at first but of course have grown used to not having them. Every now and then, something I see will remind me of the dreams, the weird feelings I had from them. Some of this guy’s carvings remind me of them but I really can’t say why or how.

Shinji Nakaba Ring

Here’s a brooch that he carved out of a bit of pvc pipe:

Shinji Nakaba carved pvc brooch

I can’t stop posting images! Look at these pieces he made out of aluminum beer cans:

Shinji Nakaba aluminum

Shinji Nakaba aluminum

Shinji Nakaba aluminum

Ahhhhh, the rose ring. Sigh.

geeky valentine love

Tjep design studio "A Clockwork Love"

I don’t often get into heart or gear jewelry. Heart jewelry is usually too sappy sentimental and gear jewelry generally attracts too predictable a crowd for my tastes. The combination of hearts and gears, however, cancel out the sap/dork and make for some pretty damned awesome pieces.

Tjep design studio "A Clockwork Love"

Tjep design studio "A Clockwork Love"

They are made by a design house called Tjep that does everything from product design and packaging to interiors and building design. It’s all pretty decent looking stuff really, rather heavy handed on the laser cutting.

MORE GEAR JEWELRY BY LYNN CHRISTIANSEN

Lynn Christiansen

Her other stuff is even cooler.

rosie the riveter

Riveted rose ring - sterling silver

New ring in the shop! It’s made from three plates of silver riveted together (no solder at all).

Riveted rose ring - sterling silver

It looks awesome when the sun shines through it; it makes little rose shadows on your hand.

In other news, I’ll be going to the Tucson Gem Show in a couple of days. It’s the largest gem show in the country, in the world possibly? At any rate, it is massive; the entire town of Tucson is descended upon and taken over by gem, rock, and fossil types. There are venues set up all over town, some typical convention-hall places or large temporary tents set up for the occasion but others are in various motels. The string of motels along I-10 transform into a crazy marketplace; people vending out of their rooms. You wander the halls, going into any open door. Beds are shoved up against the walls and folding tables are set up with lights and glass cases for the stones. You can see into the bathroom nook where there are always personal effects like coffee cups, makeup bags, electric shavers, toothbrushes, rumpled washcloths or towels sitting out. I always feel awkward when I see such things because I remember that they have been living in this room for the past week. They actually sleep in the bed underneath the table.

The goods range from dusty rocks and fossils or mammoth tusks to fat glittering diamonds and sapphires and rubies. There are tables piled two feet high with hanks of pearls. Buckets (literally) of lower-quality cut sapphires, amethysts, garnets, citrines. Some venues are just in parking lots and others have security guards, only letting certified in-the-business folks inside. These venues actually have a dress code, a thing that totally freaks me out since I have very little in the way of non-denim and t-shirts.

One of my favorite stops is the Flamingo Hotel lounge downtown where the Native Americans show their work. This is not so much a rock venue but rather a finished jewelry and artwork show. You walk into the hotel lobby and the light is dim, there are smudge bundles burning, wooden flute broken up with an eagle call here and there is playing in the background, and a bunch of surly old dudes loaded down with serious turquoise jewelry stand over their work. A lot of the jewelry isn’t really my style but some is truly awesome. It’s always worth checking out.