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08/08/2022

Why Is Jewelry So @*#% Happy?

Smiling Jewelry in Sad Times

By Carrie Yodanis

Click on the photos to learn about what they show.

Why, during these past few years of fear, anger, and sadness, did smiles start appearing on jewelry so often? | Mallory Weston, Prismatic Smiley, 2016, brooch, anodized titanium, sterling silver, leather, cotton, thread, photo: artist

This photo essay examines the reasons for, and the benefits of, smiling jewelry in hard times. The smiles underline something important we know about jewelry: its power to affect makers, wearers, and those who simply see a piece on someone else in passing. | Kvetoslava Flora Sekanova, Smiling Face, 2021, brooch, oxidized sterling silver, white freshwater pearls, photo: Michael Couper, Fingers Jewellery

Smileys, on jewelry and otherwise, are not new. The smiley face first appeared 50 years ago in a French newspaper, during a period of hopelessness. Over the decades, despair has frequently returned, but so has the smiley face, reminding us to remain “defiantly optimistic” about better times to come. The smiley is “us putting our best face forward.” Reference: Wallpaper, in partnership with Smiley, Celebrate 50 Years of Smiley Culture, March 11, 2022, www.wallpaper.com/design/celebrate-50-years-of-smiley-culture. | Alexander Blank, Smiley, 2007, brooch, steel, lacquer, photo: Mirei Takeuchi, Ornamentum Gallery

While not new, the smiley on jewelry does seem to have become particularly popular these past few years. A “faces” exhibition early this year highlighted that “faces have been on jewelry for centuries and millennia but the ‘face’ theme in art jewelry has become increasingly evident in recent years.” The exhibit asked, “What drives jewelry artists today to deal with faces in jewelry?” “We see faces everywhere,” the exhibit observed. “Selfies follow us on social media, messages are reinforced with smileys...” Reference: Galerie Handwerk, "Gesichter—Faces," 2022, www.hwk-muenchen.de/artikel/gesichter-faces-74,0,10753.html. | Peter Bauhuis, Flavedo, 2018, brooch, dried citrus fruits, Tumbaga, photo: artist

Since last year, Laila Marie Costa has been curating a digital jewelry gallery that focuses on the many faces in jewelry: Gallery RUN (www.lailamariecosta.com/gallery-run). Adapting a question asked in 1956 by Pop artist Richard Hamilton, Costa asks, “Just what is it that makes today's faces so different, so appealing...” The smiles, she says, are part of our current times and trends, reactions to pressure and reflections of our ongoing sense of humor. But the smile, she adds, also speaks uniquely to different generations, each of whom has their own concerns, challenges, and ways of (selectively) communicating. | Laila Marie Costa, Phaces/Don't Worry Be Happy, 2018, velvet jewelry box inserts, earrings, collected material (from various Malaysian beaches, daily tourist consumption, and the streets), sterling silver, photo: Bryony Jackson

JCK noticed the recent trend in smiling jewelry, including this smile charm that builds on smiley trends from decades past. Their reporter wrote, “maybe the smiley just evolves to give us what we need at the time.” Reference: Brittany Siminitz, You’ll Get a Smiley Face from Seeing This Jewelry, JCK, September 22, 2021, www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/smiley-face-jewelry/. | ArtSugar x Stephanie Gottlieb, Smile Charm, 2021, 14-karat yellow gold charm, pink glitter enamel or yellow enamel with sparkly black diamond eyes, photo: ArtSugar

What do we need to be happy during these times? Consumer marketing promises happiness through the buying of things. It is easy to be critical of this. But as Claire Webb posted: “…we believe in taking joy where you can find it.” And jewelry can spark joy. Reference: @yoursbyclairewebb, August 1, 2021. | Claire Webb, Smiley Studs, 2021, earrings, vintage Swarovski rhinestones, epoxy clay, metal leaf, sterling silver, resin, photo: artist

Can jewelry make us happy? It might seem strange to think of jewelry, an object, as being able to do anything. But the jewelry we wear affects us. As Melanie Holcomb wrote in Jewelry: The Body Transformed, “[Jewelry] stands at the center of a whole range of social interactions, in which it too is a player.” Reference: Melanie Holcomb, ed., Jewelry: The Body Transformed (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018). | Felieke Van Der Leest, Bridge Face: Happy Metal, 2021, silver, violin bridge (maple), cubic zirconia, paint, photo: Eddo Hartmann

Smiling jewelry can cause us to smile back at it: “…how can one not smile at this sight?” Reference: Brittany Siminitz, Britt’s Pick: Smile Signet Ring by Komi, JCK, January 11, 2022, www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/britts-pick-smile-signet-komi/. | KOMI designs (Hwayoung Koizumi and Atsushi Koizumi), Smiley Face Ring, 2021, 18-karat yellow gold-plated sterling silver, black diamond, garnet, orange sapphire, photo: Hwayoung Koizumi

The smile on Sano Teruyuki’s Happy Charm looks upside down at first. But it’s positioned so that the wearer can see the smile when looking down. The smile will cause the wearer to smile. When the wearer smiles, that makes other people smile. | Sano Teruyuki, Happy Charm, 2021, pendant, brass, photo: artist

One of the powers of jewelry is that it can make us feel. Jewelry has emotional value, storing memories of past times, people, and places. As Marjan Unger wrote in Jewellery in Context, “A piece of jewellery can symbolise the happiness of a moment or the memory of a whole life…The range of emotions and experiences that can be bundled in a piece of jewellery is endless.” In this way, can jewelry work like a pill to make us happy? Reference: Marjan Unger, Jewellery in Context (Stuttgart: Arnoldsche, 2019). | Karen Cheung, Happy Pills, 2021, porcelain, photo: Kerchung!

“Objects become our companions in the daily struggle to make life meaningful,” concluded social anthropologist Daniel Miller in his book, The Comfort of Things. Art jewelers make pieces we can connect with, almost like a tiny little friend that we carry along with us. Julia Obermaier described her brooches as “some happy friends chilling together and looking forward to a relaxed and joyful weekend.” References: Daniel Miller, The Comfort of Things (Cambridge: Polity, 2008). @juliaobermaier_jewellery, July 9, 2021. | Julia Obermaier, Little Monsters, 2021, pins, quartz druse (head), rock crystal (tongue), different gemstones for eyes (rock crystal, karneol, reconstructed turquoise, quartz), silver pin, resin, pigment, photo: artist

A number of art jewelers have been playfully working with the idea that pieces of jewelry can add to our social circles. Gabriella Goldsmith, for example, calls her collection of kinetic smiling brooches and earrings Friends and Family. | Gabriella Goldsmith, Goofy Friend, 2021, brooch/earring, brass, photo: artist

The British visual artist David Shrigley, who doesn’t usually make jewelry, made a series of pendants for the Louisa Guinness Gallery that seem to tease the possibility of jewelry being our companions. | David Shrigley, Companion Pendant, 2021, pendant, silver, photo: artist, Louisa Guinness Gallery

Part of the power of jewelry is its ability to create community between people. Art jewelry, worn on the body, attracts attention, makes a statement, and tells stories. In this way, jewelry doesn’t let us just pass by and ignore each other. It makes us pause, starts conversations, and connects us. Reference: Liesbeth den Besten, On Jewellery (Stuttgart: Arnoldsche, 2012). | Réka Lőrincz, We Are Family, 2018, necklace, silver, pearl, shell, antique jewelry, resin, photo: Geza Talaber

Joana Albuquerque Sousa’s Masks for Everyday Rituals is a line of brooches with purposely exaggerated emotions. Such faces on jewelry enhance our interactions in everyday life, adding to the efforts of the human face. The smiles make us laugh and feel together. As the organizers of NYC Jewelry Week 2022 note, “human connection can take many forms and the meanings are often subjective and personal, but the pursuit of joy, unity, and community is common.” Reference: nycjewelryweek.com| Joana Albuquerque Sousa, Masks for Everyday Rituals, 2020, brooch, aluminum, stainless steel, gold solder, photo: Pedro Sequeira

Göran Kling described jewelry as like a meme in our interactions: “We use jewellery to read people, right? And therefore it means to be in on something together so the jewellery can be easily understood. But not necessarily by everyone, but by whom you want to communicate with.” Reference: Kellie Riggs, “The Way of the Future with Göran Kling,” Current Obsession Magazine’s #5 Vernacular Issue, July 21, 2017. | Göran Kling, Stripe Smile Medallion, 2022, sterling silver, photo: artist

We wear jewelry to show our identities to others. With our jewelry, we send messages to people about who we are and what we’re like. But, as jewelers are showing with their smiling jewelry, sometimes the identity we present to other people is not so accurate. A smile on the outside doesn’t always mean happiness on the inside. Gina Justina Lee’s smiling pieces are titled Inner Feelings. They have smiling faces on the front but sad and angry faces on the back. Reference: Marjan Unger, Jewellery in Context (Stuttgart: Arnoldsche, 2019). | Gina Justina Lee, Inner Feeling, 2019, 24-karat gold, fine silver, sterling silver, mixed media, photo courtesy of the artist

Kako Shimoonoda makes lots of smiles, but she is skeptical of how truthful the smile is. This piece is called Smile? Sarcastic Smile. She also made a “smile to hide anger,” a “smile to hide sadness and weakness,” and a “real smile.” She wrote, “According to each situation, people apply many kinds of smiles. Is it a true smile? There could be a completely different emotion hidden underneath.” Reference: @kako_shimoonoda, March 13, 2020. | Kako Shimoonoda, Smile? (Sarcastic Smile), 2019, brooch, acrylic, aluminum, photo: artist

The “impossible obsession of our times of projecting a perfectly happy façade” is what Jenny C. Jansson is getting at with the brooches in her My Perfect Life series. “Could it really be that it is more important to look happy, than to be happy?” she asked. “In these jewellery pieces I have examined what happens when a constructed surface of happiness meets the speedbumps and roadblocks of real life.” Reference: @jennycjansson, June 11, 2021. | Jenny C. Jansson, My Perfect Life Vol IV, 2021, silver, mother of pearl acrylic, steel, photo: artist

Highlighting the complexities of emotions and how we express them during interaction, Akiko Kurihara shows “smiles and tears” on the same piece. | Akiko Kurihara, Smiles and Tears, 2016, necklace, 14-karat gold, oxidized sterling silver, silk thread, photo courtesy of the artist

Chloé Valorso wore a necklace from her Smileys collection as she read her poem as part of NYCJW 2021’s Power of Jewelry. The ending lines read, “Frustration is growing/ Emotions erupting/ And corners of my face are smiling/ Contradiction/ Transformation/ Crystallisation/ Standing ovation/ CREATION.” Through this work, she notes the mindlessMESS rather than the mindfulNESS many of us are experiencing. Reference: @chloevalorso, November 23, 2021. | Chloé Valorso, Mindfulmess, 2019, necklace, alloy of recycled bronze and silver gold-plated 22 karat, photo: artist

Much of our communication these past few years has not been in person but mediated through technology. Jewelers are addressing the complexities of communicating digitally. Danni Schwaag’s pins smile on the front but have other, more troubled, expressions on the back. She asks, “what do icons mean to us?...* | * …..^ _ ^ …. 'o' ” Reference: www.dannischwaag.de/faces.html. | Danni Schwaag, Faces, 2021, brooch, black mother-of-pearl, oxidized silver, steel, photo: artist

A part of the 2020 Digitally Yours exhibition, Snem Yildirim’s Sense & Sensation pieces see complexity in emoji emotions, just like our real ones. Her holographic pieces offer an ever-changing answer to the question, “How are you?” She says, “If you aren’t certain which emotion you are meant to feel, you may as well feel them all.” Reference: digitallyyoursexhibition.com/snem-yildirim/. | Snem Yildirim, Sense & Sensation II, 2020, brooch, lenticular lens, paper, anodized aluminum, powder-coated brass, photo: artist

Of Laura Forte’s ring + cube emoticon, Munich Jewelry Week posted, “Emoticons and emojis … are the mirror of our always-connected society and open the frontier of communication without language barriers. …[B]ehind those symbols there is much more than a simple message; they can reveal details of the personality of those who use them.” Reference:
@munichjewelleryweek, May 17, 2021. | Laura Forte, Cube Emoticon, 2020, cube + ring, silver, rubber, colored zircons, photo: artist

Jewelers often don’t know what their art will be, even once it is finished. Jewelry seems to become what it wants to become. And then its meaning can change again with a new perspective. Every so often, one of Karl Fritsch’s rings looks to be smiling. "What I find really fascinating, and one of the reasons why it’s so interesting to make jewellery, is the moment of recognition when something that comes across as cute and pretty has on second glimpse an almost obscene grotesqueness. I would say this quality probably works best in jewellery, where politeness and cold-blooded anger can clash mercilessly into one another." Reference: www.fingers.co.nz/exhibitors/karl_fritsch.htm. | Karl Fritsch, Untitled, 2017, ring, silver greywacke, photo: artist

At times the smile on jewelry, like a source of joy on some days, is harder to see. But the smile, and the joy, are there if you look closely enough. | Selen Özus, Hi!, 2019, brooch, porcelain, silver, photo: Umut Töre

We have the potential to see smiles everywhere. A New York Times article about why we often see faces on objects explained, “We’re constantly looking for one another out in the world—to find love, avoid danger, connect—so much so that we often see a face where there isn’t one.” From the front, these brooches show two small holes. “Are those eyes?” we might ask. Yes, and that pin back is a smile. Reference: Malia Wollan, How to See Faces Everywhere, The New York Times, March 29, 2022. | Philipp Spillmann, Backsides, 2017, brooches, Hi-macs, sterling silver, steel needle, photo: Aliona Pazdniakova

A happy face can be created from anything. Corrina Goutos made a smiling pin that looks like old chewing gum. In art jewelry, as in all art, the value of a piece comes not from the materials used but from the message that is sent with those materials. As all of pieces in this photo essay show, a simple smile can carry significant meaning. | Corrina Goutos, Stuck in My Teeth, 2019, brooch, industrial materials, cold enamel, glass stones, copper, steel, photo: artist

Eve Lam makes jewelry from objects that look, if you look closely enough, like smiles. She made this smile brooch out of an egg slicer. In her post, she wrote, “It’s a critical time which we are going thru together…It’s time for us to spread love and positivity…. Take care of one another…” Reference: @ evelam.xyz, March 15, 2020. | Eve Lam, 1, 2, 3, Smile, 2018, brooch, brass furniture fittings, aluminum screw, stainless steel, photo: artist

Just as smiling jewelry can help those who wear it feel happy, it can do the same for the art jewelers who make it. The process of creating a smile can bring some light into a dark studio. Everett Hoffman has been creating literal night lights from his smiling faces. Of this brooch, the genesis for his night light series, he said, “feels like there’s not a lot to smile about in this current moment...but hopefully this is a slight break from the bleak news.” Reference: @everetthoffman, April 9, 2020. | Everett Hoffman, Pansy Eyes, 2019, brooch, vintage rhinestones, anodized titanium, silver, stainless steel, photo: artist

“Another one for the dark days,” Julia Walter posted with one of her many smiling pieces of jewelry. A few years back, Julia wrote Happy Day—A Report, an essay about a day at a market where she spent time with the work of a jeweler who had died. Everyone called him Happy Day, she wrote, “because that’s what one would hear him shout out all day from his market stand…His name was his mission: Enjoy life!” Among the jewelry he left behind were simple smiling faces, “formed out of wire, two small circles for the eyes, a straight line as a nose, and a bent line for a smile.” References: @juwalter.ananas.bananas, October 31, 2021, and
Julia Walter, Happy Day, Current Obsession magazine, #5 Vernacular issue, 2016. | Julia Walter, Friends!, 2019, brooch/earring, acrylic paint on canvas, 14-karat gold, photo: artist

All jewellers, working in their studios, talk to themselves in frustration, for encouragement, and out of sheer delight at a piece well made. Eric Loubser turned his self-conversations into a series, Talking to Myself, Out Loud. With this ring he says, “I know it’s been rough, but try and keep on smiling.” Reference: @ericloubser, July 7, 2021. | Eric Loubser, Keep on Smiling, 2021, ring, silver, 9-karat yellow gold, photo: artist

During a time when many trips were cancelled and challenges mounted daily, Chantel Gushue started making smiling Souvenir brooch magnets. She said, “childhood memories of the beach inspired the silliness of the pieces.” She also embraced the freedom of the pieces herself: “Now in the studio, if I feel like being a bit of a weirdo, I'm going to follow through on it.” Reference: @chantelgushue, August 6, 2021. | Chantel Gushue, Souvenir Collection, 2021, brooch/souvenir magnet, bovine bone, steel, onyx, enamel paint, silver, googly eyes, glass, photo: artist

Investing in others improves one’s own happiness. Jewelers have placed smiles on their work to support important causes during these difficult times. Zsuzsi Morrison’s Smiley Brooch was sold as part of the Artist Support Pledge (#artistsupportpledge), a sharing and sustaining community of artists and makers. | Zsuzsi Morrison, Smiley Brooch, 2020, fine silver, 22-karat gold, sterling silver pin, photo: artist

Matilde Mozzanega added smiles to her Transparent Waste Revival Jewellery collection, which is made only of recycled materials. As she said, “This is a playful and interactive way of ‘rethinking’ jewellery and at the same time it wants to highlight a very important issue”—the problem of plastic waste. | Matilde Mozzanega, 2021, Winter, Bling & Bloom—Transparent Waste Revival, necklace, vacuum-sealed recycled Swarovski crystals/pearls, recycled fabrics and flowers within recycled plastic pouches, recycled acrylic chains, photo: artist

Serena Bartok made smiling earrings for a fundraiser to support her local non-profit craft council. She also made angry face earrings, but those she kept for herself. She couldn’t let them go, she said. “They brought me too much joy.” Reference: @serenabartok, May 1, 2021. | Serena Bartok, 2021, earrings, depletion-gilded sterling silver, photo: artist

Some jewelers are simply using smiling faces to express what ancient philosophies teach about happiness—no matter how bad things are, we can still find some bit of joy. Along with her smiling collection, Maria José Fábrega posted, “It’s a good day to be happy” and “Choose happy.” Reference:@fabrega_jewelry, August 31, 2021. | Maria José Fábrega, Elis, Oh Hey There Collection, 2021, earrings, sterling silver, 18-karat gold plated, photo: artist

The smiling faces can be a reminder to be happy because, indeed, life is short. Ambroise Degeneve made a smiling pendant for a show called Memento Mori (“Remember You Must Die”). | Ambroise Degeneve, Memento Mori, 2021, pendant, concrete, pearls, silver, cotton, photo courtesy of the artist

Author

Carrie Yodanis

Carrie Yodanis is a jeweler and sociologist. She makes and writes about jewelry as a way to share ideas about the social world. She’s a professor at the University of British Columbia, where she studies and teaches about art and inequality.

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