Boxing Helena

Boxing Helena was a movie starring a woman named Sherilyn Fenn, and I was very much struck by her beauty. I have no Idea where she is from but she had a soft femininity that I associate with many of the southern women I admire. The film was very avant garde and rather off putting subject wise. However I was totally captivated by the louche manner and sensuality of the actress. In short, throughout the film she has her limbs removed in stages until she is left without arms or legs. I have at this point in my career been rendered armless when it comes to my jewelry.  Initially, when I started in jewelry, I did not have the resources to really do much, or to pay anyone to make the pieces. Everything that I created I actually made from beginning to end.  I would carve the waxes and polish the pieces.  I did not assemble everything. However, I was capable of doing so.  The act of making jewelry was something I would complete solo, free of the interpretations of bench jewelers. However, over time, I have started to independantly create the jewelry less and less.  To be  perfectly honest I was never very good at assembling the pieces. I began to see the advantages of having other people execute my ideas for me as opposed to by me.  On some level, its akin to having my arms and legs removed.

The new format of verbally directing the production of all the pieces has the great advantage of expediting  the pieces made as well as increasing the quality of the pieces created.  It allows me to focus on my creative outlets and relationships with clients far more than I was able to in the beginning.   The quality of the jewelry has become a hallmark of my brand.   The jewelry is made as well as jewelry can be made.  I’ve always been keenly aware of the fact that I could most easily compete with the larger brands by emphasizing quality, and by offering unique pieces of work. tEach of thoes idea have become more the exception rather then the norm in todays jewelry world. It has made all the difference. 

Money, or the relative lack thereof, has dictated that for non custom pieces, more often then not, I must use a gorgeous fire opal as opposed to a canary diamond. This necessity, that I welcome wholeheartedly, has become a real strength of my jewelry. However, making the pieces prefect is hugely dependent on my ability to verbally express nuance. Perhaps the most difficult part of the job, is sitting with bench jewelers and relating the emotion or feeling of what I want.  It’s so specific.  I equate it with writing because sometimes words can be very similar but give distinctively different feelings or meanings to things.  That same thing applies to jewelry and shapes.  Small differences in shape create very different tenor to pieces.  The relationships I have with my jewelers must be complicit and we must share the same jewelry vernacular. It is not really something that can be taught. It can be ameliorated, but I must share a natural taste level with each jeweler I employ. 

As an artist, one of the things you are constantly taught is not to explain what you are doing.  It's often received as a weakness.   If a piece is good it should explain itself.  However, I do not have that luxury anymore.  I must verbalize what I want, the feelings that I want each piece to convey.  On the pieces that I do complicity with clients, the more they can express, the better job I can do for them.  

Fine gem stones have the unique capacity of expressing ideas and feelings through secondary colors.  Even poor workmanship has a hard time compromising that singular voice. Poor workmanship will not destroy the beauty of a truly beautiful stone.  However, fine workmanship will set a stones message to music.  For a long time I have tried to isolate distinctive character in any fine gem stone by creating a foil for that stone.  For example, taking a ruby and setting it in driveway gravel. It’s the basic idea of emphasizing something by employing its counter opposites.  In the photograph above I have included some fire opal earrings that I recently completed. The fire opal is smooth and organic.  To create a foil for this piece, I set it against geometric pave.  To take it a step further, the pave is set upside down creating a sharpness, a la porcupine.  It’s a good example of opposites attracting.  I’ve been accused of being too sculptural in the past. I have a hard time breaking that habit.  

On a separate note, I am in the south right now, enjoying the scent of confederate jasmine and the bloom of the saucer magnolias.  I plan on going up to Natchez in the next couple of days to check out all of those beautiful antebellum homes.  One notable one is half finished.  It looks a little bit bombed out in the interior.  I love it.  I do not love the idea that the civil war stopped such a beautiful home from being completed.  But I do feel that looking at half finished art, gives  you insight into the method of the artist, whether it be architect, jewelry designer, or trumpet player.  All of it gets figured out in stages; it is the organic nature of creativity.  

All of this helps me think out of the box.