The Art Dept

     Alexander Calder was one of the most prolific artists from the 1940’s through the  mid 70’s. He is most known for his sculptures and hanging mobiles, but he also  made over 1,800 pieces of jewelry.      There are many similarities between Calder’s jewelry pieces and his art. He used basic, inexpensive materials, had a fascination with negative space, and used silver wire. Through his jewelry, which adorned the likes of Anjelica Huston, Peggy Guggenheim, and Georgia O’Keeffe, Calder gained a whole new luxury audience in the fashion world.           Calder first made jewelry at age 8. He made necklaces for his sister’s dolls, using beads and bits of copper electrical wire. The influence from his sculpture on his jewelry is evident. Both display an unmistakable sense of balance and energy. Calder’s craftsmanship is always visible. He never used solder in his jewelry pieces and instead linked them – just...

It happened again, and I just want to tell the story.        When I work on the jewelry pieces, I’m in my studio, by myself, squirreling away. I work on one color combination per week, and make as many pieces as I can in those colors. So it was silver and gray week, and I had this fabulous strip of dried acrylic paint which I had peeled from the palette. It looked a little drab, so I coated it with resin and sprinkled on some glitter. Then it wanted to be adhered to a frame of handmade paper, and then backed with painted artist canvas. Now it was beginning to get an identity! Because of the rectangular format, I chose to  suspend it from a smaller rectangular piece of textured silver clay. Then I finished it off with a strand of harmonious beads of paper, clay and metal.           By then it was time to clock out for the day. As I was cleaning up and organizing the work space, I took one more look at the piece I had j...

       Many years ago when I did art shows in Del Ray Beach, Florida, one of my clients brought one of her favorite pair of earrings to show me.  The earrings from her collection were a fascinating combination of different shapes and colors of vintage glass, wood and lucite bits, suspended from a circular piece that covered the earlobe. I was so inspired by seeing these very unique and artfully designed earrings that I started making a similar style. I was also impressed by my gracious and stately client, Lorraine. She was quite fashion minded and carried herself with elegance. She was a lovely silver haired women who would always seek me out to find just the right piece for her collection.       The last time I was in a Del Ray Beach show, her husband came by to pick something out, and told me that Lorraine was now in a nursing home, and no longer able to get to the show. I love that even at the end of her life, she was so co...

      I have a reputation for earrings. If I ever show up without them on, I am just not dressed and something is terribly wrong.    I remember once when I was to speak before a large group. One of my friends was in the audience, one who always looked forward to seeing what earrings I would be wearing. We were doing volunteer work at a farm, and I would show up wearing earrings even if I was raking leaves or painting walls. So as I took my place at the podium, I reached into my pocket and dramatically pulled out and put on a rather bodacious pair of earrings. Looking straight at my friend Mario, I said, “Okay, now I can begin.”       To me, that is the importance of earrings. They not only complete the look, they are the look. The finishing touch. The expression of the moxie and mojo within.  Without them, something is missing, and I can’t possibly go into my day complete.            One morning at my ...

     Earlier this month I made the decision to compete. The competition is for a monetary prize that will be awarded in an upcoming show. This is an art show in which I have participated for the last three years, and, for me, the awards are fairly substantial. I am not usually one to go after awards, but I figure I’m going there anyway, so I might as well compete.      The other motivator for me is that I need a new jury image or two. Somewhere along the line I learned that jury images need to show a constistency; the pieces need to look like they are all from the same DNA, so to speak. I have had a concern that my jury images are too dissimilar, and someday I need to make them more cohesive.         So someday arrived this week. I had three days off work, so I scheduled studio time to design and build a show piece that 1) could possibly win a prize, and 2) be photographed for a jury image for next year’s sh...

   In my art I use a lot of stuff, and by stuff I mean paper, beads, canvas, leather, wood, clay, and of course the requisite dried slices of acrylic paint. I have a wonderful work area devoted to  jewelry making, and as soon as I sit down at my work table I can  dive right in to the work of making new pieces. In the artistic process  there tends to be much shuffling of stuff. It is easy to  get so involved in this process that the work area  becomes a chaotic mess of stuff.      There comes a time in my work process that I simply need to  stop, put everything back in order,  and start up again.  Curiously, I  find that this brief time of  setting things back in order is also the time when I get my best ideas and  inspiration. It’s like getting a breath of fresh air. Once that occurs, I am eager to dive in and start the  work all over again.      I know artis...

Harmony, that wonderful balance when there's not too little, not too much, when visually it's just right.  At times it eludes us, and we have to get back to the basics.  So here it is: Harmony 101

      "Light is everything in the visual arts. Without it these arts could not exist. The artist controls light intensity with values, changes its color with pigments, and thereby creates his effects.     Like all animals, we are extremely sensitive to light, and any change in its intensity affects us strongly. Sunlight stimulates, twilight calms and makes pensive, and darkness depresses with fear and mystery. These are universal reactions to light and are as ancient as Adam."                   Maitland Graves, The Art of Color and Design, 1951 "The artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful- as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony"                                     ...