A Gift.

A Bob Brooch!

Bob!

I am so fortunate to be able to take a Bob Ebendorf / Jim Cotter class this summer at Penland! Then I expect to have another 3 years with Bob at ECU. Bob is the reason that I became interested in jewelry and metals in the first place, not only because of his work, but because also too, he's such a special person.

The last time I visited ECU, which happens to be in my home town, Greenville, NC, I picked up a similar rusted crushed can on the road during my run. Laying next to it was a beat-up plastic gem that wedged into a crease of the can perfectly. I gave it to Bob and he's going to make it into something fabulous!

 Here's a collection of some of Bob's charms:

You may recognize this piece from the exhibit at SECCA recently. Glasswear: Glass in Contemporary Jewelry. 

Elizabeth Yarborough

When my sister found out that I was interested in jewelry design she gasped and said that we must have lunch with her cousin, Elizabeth Yarborough! After browsing her website I excitedly agreed. With a sense of humor, and with an interest in deconstructing materials and stereotypes, she subverts traditional wardrobe and household staples and reintroduces them in surprising ways. I had the pleasure of speaking with her on the phone last summer, where gave me tons of helpful tips and words of wisdom. She recently opened a new boutique in San Francisco and featuring her sweater bangles called Yarbie, which has its own website.  

Yarbie Sweater Bangles:

Oh, and she's beautiful:

Laura Wood

I am so exciting about being able to attend Laura Wood's senior thesis show this Friday! In the past 3 years two different people have bought me a pair of her poppy paper earrings, and they are my favorite. She's graduating from East Carolina University with a MFA in the metals program, the same program I'll be enrolling in this coming fall. She's been working on a series of small jewelry objects covered in paper, I recently dropped off one of my mom's old watches for her to cover with abaca paper. She's oh so very talented and I absolutely love clicking through all of her work. 

Here are some of her poppy earrings:

She used sweet potatoes for the molds.

Here's an example of her found objects covered in paper:

She's also into sculpture:

you can follow her!

www.laurawoodstudios.com

www.laurawood.tumblr.com

www.ldeezy.etsy.com

Logo

I think that Becky Hatley needs to look into designing logos as a career! This is the logo I'll be using when I design my website, new business cards, and who knows, maybe I'll get it tattooed on my back. That's how much I like it. Please comment and let me know if you can figure out what it is. It may help to know that the original spelling of my last name means 'little quail' in Italian. Enjoy.

Barbietastic

Talk about what you can do with Barbie parts! Margaux Lange knows how it's done. I'm especially inspired by this necklace: Bubblegum POP Neckpiece 200?, made with sterling silver, resin, and Barbie faces.

Monocolormagic

Speaking of things painted all the same... Rondle Royce West has the same idea.

Instant Obsession

For my 'Translation' installation project, I had planned on spraypainting all of my dollhouses and Barbie paraphernalia 1 solid color. Then, something caught my eye on Amy Tavern's blog, and there was Denise Julia Reytan, making bib necklaces with collages of crap, all spraypainted the same color! Beautiful, I'll just have to do the same.

What inspires me about Reytan's work, is that she translates her small scale jewelry work, into large scale installation pieces. For example, here she describes her 2010 installation in Berlin, Big Poem:

"I build this jewellery installation for the »Poems on the 
body« exhibition in the gallery ”Schmuckfrage“ in Berlin.
This installation is about the beauty of everyday objects,
which surround us. I used funny hair rollers, yoga mats, 
plastic dishes, crazy silicon kitchenware, coloured wool, 
glossy plastic buckets, laces, spacy cleaning sponges… 
everything that fascinated me. When I arrange an installation, 

it is the same approach as I create jewelry..only bigger."

   

Deborah Brown, will you marry me?

Thank you Simon Doonan for introducing me to Deborah Brown. Flipping through Confessions of a Window Dresser, I spotted a Barbie themed window, therefore it was necessary that I stop and take a closer look. Simon often pairs up with visual artists to create collaborative windows. This particular window by Deborah Brown includes a serpentine Barbie with dismembered dolls that were reassembled with their mismatch parts, seamlessly joined with marabou or pearl trim. I could not find this exact image but her other works are no less stunning.

The Fabulous Simon Doonan

I picked up my book, Confessions of a Window Dresser today to research ideas on designs within a small space. Simon Doonan has been designing windows for Barneys since 1986 and has created some of the most fantabulosa windows in the world (he has a glossary section in the back of his book: "The lost language of window dressers" --> fantabulosa included). You may recognize him from his TV Show Beautiful People and he also writes books, I highly recommend Eccentric Glamour, he is absolutely hilarious.

Imaginary Bubbles

Everything is strange about this Alex McCleod moment. I discovered one of his images during my Erwin Wurm spree, and thought that what I was looking at was an miniature installation piece. Then I looked further, learning that the image was one of many 3D rendering by not a he, but a she, a hot x-comedian who used to host Trading Spaces, not my imagined greasy hipster who went to Parsons for illustration. I want to walk around in her renderings.

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Big Coat

I saw this Erwin Wurm sculpture in W magazine. Then I googled him and decided that he is hilarious. I'm sure you would also enjoy googling him as well.

Qtips

I discovered a magical list of jewelers on Amy Tavern's blog and happily came across this incredible collar by Malou Paul.