theory

So You Want to Be a Jewelry Designer

So You Want to Be a Jewelry Designer reinterprets how to apply techniques and modify art theories from the jewelry designer’s perspective. Reveals how to become a literate and fluent jewelry designer.

Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective

What is contemporary jewelry? What is the background of the medium, and how does it stand now and possibly in the future? “Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective” examines the field with abundant photographs and thought-provoking insights. Featuring some of the most notable jewelry writers and other contributors from around the world—as well as hundreds of striking …

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Techniques and Technologies

Jewelry-making techniques bring materials together within a composition. Techniques construct the interrelationship among parts so that they preserve a shape, yet still allow the piece of jewelry to move with the person as the jewelry is worn. And techniques manipulate the essence of the whole of the piece so as to convey the artist’s intent …

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What Is Jewelry Really?

We create and wear jewelry because we do not want to feel alone. But “not wanting to feel alone” can mean different things to different people. The jewelry artist must have insight here. The artist needs to understand what jewelry really is in order to make successful choices about forms, materials, design elements, inspirations, techniques, …

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Brosche or the jewelry without object of Manfred Nisslmüller

A case study of Austrian artist Manfred Nisslmüller’s work ‘Taschenrecorder’ (1984-1993, made in eight examples), highlighting the artist’s view of “jewelry as a disruption” using of critical, ironic, and subversive modes of art history.

Contemporary Jewelry is Not A Look–Its a Way of Thinking

Contemporary jewelry represents a specific approach for thinking through design. Making jewelry is, in essence, an authentic performance task. The jewelry artisan applies knowledge, skill, and awareness in anticipation of the influence and constraints of a set of shared understandings. Shared understandings relate to composition, construction, and performance. These understandings are enduring, transferable, big ideas …

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Jewelry Design Composition: Playing With Building Blocks Called Design Elements

Jewelry making is a constructive process of expression. The language of expression begins with the idea of design elements. Design elements are the smallest meaningful units of design. Design elements function in a similar way as vowels and consonants in a language. They have form. They have meaning. They have expression. Some can stand alone, …

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Re: Halcyon Dream Catalogue

Excerpt from Shannon Stratton’s essay regarding Anna Lindsay MacDonald’s 2016 solo exhibition, Re: Halcyon Dream: “Anna Lindsay MacDonald’s work seems to resonate with Soulilliou’s theory of ornament, playing with the idea of appearance and disappearance in the face of technology. Her black and white palette recalls dazzle camouflage, but even more so, predicts a future …

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Go For Baroque: Opulence and Excess in Contemporary Art

This text explores how theoretical concepts of opulence and excess are explored in contemporary art, especially jewelry. Images of several exhibited works are included. Focusing on artists from the United States and Western Europe, it offers a Western-based interdisciplinary perspective for thinking about what “baroque” could mean in a modern context. Jewelry forms the basis …

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