What Does Art Jewelry Look Like When Worn?

When you look at art jewelry, are you curious what it looks like when worn? Here at AJF, we think it alters, it compliments, it empowers.

We’ve asked you to send us your thoughts, along with an image of art jewelry being worn. Here are a few highlights. If you’d like to contribute and become part of the conversation, please visit What does art jewelry look like when worn? and fill out the form.

Linda Savineau
The most compelling images/jewelry are those that make people react!

Kadri Mälk
Peter Skubic is an artist ne plus ultra. The proportions are the key, he says. But not only. Jens Clausen realizes what the work is worth and so the image is irresistible.

Susan Cummins
The excellent correspondence of the shape of the work, the mirror, and the person—although not worn in the real sense—and the magic match of the three factors makes the essence and the quality of the image.

Rochelle Ford
I quit a job running an international nonprofit at age 58 and taught myself to be a welder. I decided I didn’t want to be a starving artist and have been making a living since day one, creating everything from three-story-high sculptures to jewelry. I love what I do and now, at age 82, wake up each day and tell myself this is the youngest day of the rest of my life … then get up and make something beautiful out of discarded metal from wrecked automobile parts and other found objects, then create something that nurtures my soul and satisfies my collectors. Thank you for the opportunity to share my passion with your readers. (To see more, visit metalsculptor.com.)

Cristina Filipe
“Jewelry is life.” —Mah Rana

David Dao, Board President
“Like much of Tabitha’s work, this piece doesn’t fully come to life until it’s worn. On the wall, it’s about texture and the interplay between the various forms and shadows, but when worn by Kena and Neveah, Baltimore Jewelry Center Summer Camp participants, the piece is transformed and is transformative.”

Inger Wästberg
Autumn 2017. The Swedish Academy was affected by #Metoo, confidentiality violations, financial irregularities, and cronyism. Even though membership in the Academy is a lifelong commitment, a number of the members resigned in protest against the internal handling of the situation. Sara Danius, the permanent secretary, was forced to leave by the remaining men within the Academy in order for them to avoid a moral and legal handling of the problems. As Danius often wears pussy bow blouses when appearing in the Academy, a large amount of people started wearing the same in symbolic support for her. This happened in public and in social media and it can be seen in the several demonstrations that were held in protest outside the Swedish Academy Stockholm. The pussy bow blouse is here a grand example of the power of adornment and its use. It shows how people engage and take place in the public conversation by transforming a piece of garment into both support and resistance.

Auli Laitinen works with jewelry as wearable conversation pieces. The bow blouse in Sweden 2018 can be seen as an act of adornment and she wishes for Nobel Bow to prolong this conversation when she bejewels the bow with questioning amendments and supplements into this tie-like hybrid. I was proud to wear the bow to show support for Danius at the formal annual meeting of the Swedish Academy with the King and Queen attending. I was interviewed in a cultural news program on TV about it.

Fran Allison
Andrew Morgan’s video The True Cost gives a compelling backstory behind mainstream fashion, particularly the ubiquitous T-shirt, and served as inspiration for this piece. Allan McDonald’s photograph has captured the weight and gravity of the subject matter … and the importance of the body and the re-wearing of these T-shirt remembrance crosses.

Cornelie Holzach
This image was made for the exhibition Must-Sees—Jewellery in the Arts, at Pforzheim’s Jewellery Museum in 2017, presented within the context of Pforzheim’s 250th anniversary as the “City of Gold.” For this show, pieces of jewelry from the museum’s collection—usually only to be admired behind showcase glass—were photographed, being worn by people of today, even historical pieces.