Lot’s Wife (concept ring)

Lot’s Wife (concept ring), originally uploaded by alexispl.

I am momentarily discombobulated as I actually just had a bank employee try to hard sell me on a product that I did not want. When I politely tried to refuse (repeatedly), he told me, “I know what’s best for you ma’am”. I thought I had been magically transported to the 19th century where men were allowed to say that sort of thing to women. Magic should be confined to the realm of childhood and sparkly things, like jewelry. Ah, now I’m back on track.

Speaking of jewelry, I recently finished a new concept ring. I am constantly surveying the urban landscape for discarded objects and oxidized metals. I am especially fond of rust. I enjoy being a girl jeweler!

You are who you wish to be

A human being is never what he is but the self he seeks

–Octavio Paz

Gmail. *sigh*

I used to write an eponymous blog about my art process when I was actively painting and making sculpture. After a while, I started to feel my sense of privacy had become invaded, and I felt an odd pressure to become more political in my blog posts. While I do have political opinions, that was not the purpose of that blog, nor this one. So, I made my blog private or so I thought. (I just Googled myself–don’t act like you don’t do it too–and discovered this insidious little program called wpfind that posts snippets of private posts to the internet for the whole wide world to see. Thanks Big Brother.)

When I established the Love Kill Monster blog (to chronicle my art jewelry practice), I wanted to import some of my relevant postings from my old blog–but I couldn’t remember my WordPress password. So, I followed the password recovery steps, only the instructions were sent to a former gmail account that appears to have been involuntarily deleted (Probably for nonusage or some other arcane infraction.)

I once had a similar problem with a Yahoo email account. But I purposefully deleted the account not knowing that it affected my blogs, and Flickr account. After persistent grovelling and excessive emailling, Flickr restored my email and my Flickr account; anyway, my point is Yahoo had compassion. Will Gmail?

About Rings: Notes from Sylvie Lambert

I’m working on a series of rings, so I began by grounding my work with research. Sylvie Lambert wrote the (arguably) definitive book on rings, titled The Ring, Design: Past and Present, which I am currently re-reading and taking copious notes some of which are:

• In the history of personal adornment, the ring–more than any other article of ornamentation–holds the most power to mystify, and to convey power, status and authority. (p. 12)
• The ring makes a “strong reference to fingers, hands, and by extension the body and its movements”. The contemporary starts from this vantage point then may depart, through creative experimentation, to explore new meanings, aesthetic articulations, and modes of usage. (p. 13)
• The ring is a site-specific, small-scale sculpture that serves to adorn the fingers, draw attention to the hands, and to serve a myriad of social functions from conveying marital status, spiritual affiliation, power, and authority (pp. 8-11)

Time to get back to the studio!

Tomomi Arata

Arata’s Treasures from Under the Sea, a series of jewelry fabricated of enameled silver, glass, and sand, evokes a sense of wonder and visual pleasure. In the series, Arata developed a process resulting in gritty yet ethereal forms and iridescent, semi-translucent colors suggesting the an element of magic and unearthed sea treasures. Arata’s sublime forms, encrusted and eroded by time and the force of nature serve as a metaphor for the cyclical life process of birth, desire, discovery, discarding, and death.

(image credit: Gallery Deux Poissons)