Fragments of nature frozen in tall resin columns are telling bits of the artist’s inspiration. Mayme Kratz gathers cactus, cicada wings, feathers, fish bones and other detritus, encasing them in resin to create sculpture towers and wall panels. The wall panels – layers of resin and natural materials – are reminiscent of encaustic paintings. Interesting and new to me. You too?
Cactus Column, resin, cactus
Barrel Cactus Column, resin, barrel cactus
Pale Dream, resin, cicada wings, panel
“Much of what I observe in nature … appears stellar and a great deal of what I view in the sky seems cellular.” Mayme Kratz
In this new collection of jewelry Sue Gregor combines her love of shadows and the disc shaped wedding necklaces worn by African Masai women. Interesting to see how these seemingly disparate inspirations work in concert to create unusual wearable art.
Shadows appeal to my playful, curious, mysterious side – adding color creates another level of interest and intrigue. I love the drama in these pieces.
Gregor developed a technique for dying and embossing plastic she calls ‘fossilized plastic’. She uses the actual plant in each piece and is able to achieve the very finest details such as the veins of a leaf.
I wanted to explore the interaction between the necklace and the body by looking at the way light casts patterns. The movement of the body in and out of different lighting will make them visually exciting to view and attract attention. The motion of the person wearing the necklaces will also mean that the shadows move over their body in interesting ways at different times. Sue Gregor
Using discarded plastic bags, Ireland’s Lesley Frew transforms a material that threatens to clog our landfills by layering, heat bonding, cutting, folding and stitching the bags into a material she can manipulate. The first necklace pictured here is my favorite. If she continues with the idea and color palette in that necklace her work will shift from fun and funky to sophisticated. I look forward to seeing more from this young designer/maker.
I couldn’t find much information about Zhao Li, a Chinese artist living in Belgium, but the collection of jewelry she created pushing medical grade plastic through lace reminded me of my experiment pushing polymer through metal back in early 2008.
Pendants, Earrings and Ring, textile, medical grade plastic, sterling silver
What is ‘medical grade plastic’? Hmm. . .I wonder how she does it?
Notice the more deliberate patterning of the plastic and lace on the eerily beautiful and delicate insects she’s conjured up and brought to life.
Insect Brooches:textile, medical grade plastic, sterling silver
Earlier work includes the ring below, made of melted plastic shopping bags – see more early work here. And more images here.
Beautiful, don’t you think? After you look at the images, please read why I am in awe of 26 year old Florie Salnot. She’s one to watch.
{click on images to enlarge}
Salnot, a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, has a background in art and anthropology. She was determined to help the women of a Saharawi refugee camp find a way to support themselves and also allow for the women to express themselves artistically by applying design to practical problems.
The process
The bottle cutting tool and nail board via Inhabitat
She developed a relatively simple, low-tech method to create jewelry that utilizes equipment available in the camp – primarily hot sand, a cutting tool and a nail board. Salnot’s bottle project makes use of both natural resources (hot sand) and waste materials (discarded plastic bottles) – she describes the technique below:
“The plastic bottle is first painted and then cut into thin stripes with a cutting tool. After that, any type of drawing can be made by positioning some nails into the holes of a nail board: the plastic stripe is placed all around the nails and the whole is submerged into hot sand. The plastic stripe reacts to the heat by shrinking all along the nail drawing and keeping its shape. The piece of jewelry then requires a few last steps and fittings to become finalized. It is a very simple technique which, however, has the power to make the non-precious become precious.”
Workshop participant setting nails in a nail board
Pouring hot sand over nail board design
Plastic Bottle Project Workshop
Nail board design
You can read more about the technique here. A detailed account of the project here. And Salnot’s website here. The video below is a fascinating look at Salnot’s project and the women this project empowers.
Florie Salnot and the Plastic Bottle Workshop participants
