New Jewelry Designs

New Jewelry Designs

It occured to me as I was making jewelry several months ago that I wanted to push my comfort zone and develop new designs with new materials, thus stretch my wings quite a bit! I've been having a lot of fun working with semi prescious gemstones, lampwork glass, metal and enameled charms, wooden discs, leather cord, and a lot of wire...black annealed steel wire as well as Bronze and Copper. Working with the wire can wear one's fingers and joints out I am learning, but I so loooove the results I get using the wire!

I have developed a series of jewelry, earrings and necklaces using the carved Totems I have seen in Alaska and Washington when I lived in Anchorage, Galena and Crooked Creek as inspiration. In the 60's I took a couple of classes at the University of Washington from Bill Holmes with an anthropological look at Native American art. I had no idea then that these two experiences would ultimately influence my artistic espressions today. 

So here you have lots of wire, fabulous gemstones and lampwork glass, and the experiece of walking through parks full of wooden Totems...attending  museum and gallery shows of carved masks, paddles and other Native American artistic pieces added to the mix in my head. And voila' my fingers started weaving wire, gems, metal, wood, and glass into pieces that reminded me of those vivid visual experiences!

Chris