After months of focusing creative energy on taking pictures of my new surroundings (thousands of pictures) and teaching myself about photography and cameras (hundreds of hours), it seems fitting to write my first post of the year about an artist who creates pinhole image jewelry and constructs fully functional, small-scale metal cameras that double as beautifully crafted sculpture and wearable art.

View from the Gardens,
1.5″ diam., sterling silver, 23k gold, fine silver, film, glass

View from the Gardens, back

Nissa Kubly is a metalsmith, jeweler and photographer with an MFA in metals and jewelry. Kubly takes her one-of-a-kind pinhole image jewelry one step further by fabricating the cameras used for the imagery.

Pinhole Ring Camera

All of Kubly’s cameras use film and the wearable cameras – rings, bracelets, belt buckles – “offer tiny glimpses of the outside world when the image is developed.”

I am inspired and intrigued. And so, we begin the new year. . . welcome 2011.

Ten Minute Camera

Box Camera, brass, 5″ x 3.25″ x 4″

“A camera obscura, literally meaning “dark room”, can consist of any dark chamber, such as a box or room, with a small opening. Light from the subject matter outside the chamber travels through the room and appears as an inverted image on the opposite wall. My work consists of functional instruments made of metal, inspired by the camera obscura.” Nissa Kubly

Tuscan Villa Necklace Sterling Silver,
Pinhole Image on Film with 18k Gold Background

“This necklace contains a pinhole image taken from Ravello, Italy. The film is brown toned & set between a small circular piece of glass and 23ky gold. A process of photo etching produces the ornamentation on the back of the necklace. A handmade clasp completes the necklace.”

Lisa Sette Gallery has some wonderful images of Kubly’s cameras and sculptural viewers.  Read an article about the artist here.

See Kubly’s MFA portfolio here and an exhibition of her work at Paoli House Gallery.

Updates

Come back this afternoon when I will announce the three winners of the give-away.

And did you get DAM’s first newsletter?  No?  Be sure to sign up below if you would like to receive them in your mailbox.

I’m posting a link to the first one to give you a sneak peek (and news about the apprenticeship project).

See you this afternoon. . .