Metal and Jewelry Arts Commons^™

Bundles And Blanks And Binds And Bends, Steven Kaplan-Pistiner

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how objects we make offer us a chance at maintaining what makes us human.

A Space For Reconciliation, Xiaoran Liu

Masters Theses

The environment where I grew up retains some characteristics from The Chinese Cultural Revolution, and still influences my thinking and behavior close to the mainstream and following the rules unconsciously. Contemporary jewelry has affected me to be more critical in a positive way. I want to share this transformative experience with people who have never had contact with contemporary art, which is an alien concept for most Chinese people.

I use jewelry as the medium to express my ideas. But the typical response to my work is “I appreciate your concepts, but I can’t accept your pieces.” So, how can …

The Line, Hannah Oatman

Masters Theses

The Line is a series of exaggerated contemporary jewelry “products” that engage the audience through collecting, marketing, and nostalgia. It grew from a dissatisfaction with the world of “contemporary jewelry,” or “art jewelry,” or “author jewelry,” or whatever people are calling the field now (assuming they’re calling it anything).

The Line pushes against the rarely questioned conventions of contemporary jewelry by playing along with them (sometimes even playing a little rough).

This work intentionally walks on the lines between jewelry and art, and between art and product: lines that exist whether we want them to or not, but which can …

Bluenessless, Yuxin Long

Masters Theses

Jewelry has a long history of functioning as wearable objects with memories. A small piece of jewelry on our body can become the bridge between one person and another.

My work is a memorial for the avifauna. It serves as a place that allows me to find the balance between myself and nature. The ritualized actions from the making process help me mourn for the loss of the kingfishers, who are hunted for the bright blue feathers used in traditional jewelry. Sometimes, people put a photograph in their jewelry to keep the memory of the one they love. I use …

Distance Is A Place, Zhiqing Guo

Masters Theses

Distance is a Place documents a body of work and a process — a journey in translation, where a quality of feeling becomes an effort of physical capture in jewelry.

The desire to reveal how a deep responsiveness to the atmospheric distance of the sky is associated with an innermost nonverbal place of refuge motivates me to make perceptible this awareness for contemplation. Incorporating photographic images of the immeasurable dimensions of sky within translucent resin, a spatial distance collapses into wearable, tangible stillness to be worn on the body as an eternal present. 8

Instants // Intervals, Valerie James

Masters Theses

The structure of this thesis aligns directly with the ritual structure of the rites of passage as set forth by ethnographer Arnold van Gennep. I see myself as both a participant and purveyor of ritual, visualizing the liminal stages of my own life into tangible and intimate pieces of jewelry. According to Gennep, a participant progresses through a rite of passage in three stages: separation, liminality, and re-integration. 01 Each chapter is organized around these three categories, and on how the work and I pass in and out of the studio. Out/Separation describes the process of walking and the poetics …

Trademark, Cathryn Jasterzbski

Masters Theses

We are characterized by the assets which comprise our identity. These possessions provide us with numerous tools to navigate the social constructs that make up our lives. Growing up in a working-class family forced me to develop strategies to navigate various class structures as I engaged with them. This body of work redefines the value of the working class through a confluence of materials and techniques to bridge the two worlds that construct my identity—allowing me to coexist within both, yet bound by neither.

The Dream Alchemy, Yue Tan

Masters Theses

I strive to record and express moments from within my dreams, in order to obviate their elusiveness. I am a spectator in my dreams and sometimes find myself seized by violent and terrific events. These dreams from my subconscious guide me to the part of myself which I do not always recognize in my consciousness. I wish to know where these contents come from, why I have these dreams, or if these dreams are referencing narratives from my personal experience. The contents of these dreams, as well as the act of reflecting on them, call out my shadow––the unconscious aspect …

From Armor To Augmentation : Reclaiming My Everyday Body, Molly Palecek

Masters Theses

My work explores the silhouette of the body and how we can be empowered to augment it. First impressions are formed instantly and inform much of our social interactions, but these impressions are often made with the limited information of a quick glance and the simple outline of a body shape. There is a negative stigma about some body types and this can make social interaction daunting. This is especially true for women in general, for whom physical appearance is closely tied to perceived value by society. It is even more of an issue for women like myself, whose body …

Wild Power, Iris Han

Masters Theses

Wild Power is a journey to understand myself by creating wearable pieces representing aspects of my character. A human body is limited physically and it cannot show the whole identity of a person. I have desired to empower myself and also express my complex innermost feelings by ornamenting my body with another layer. This aspiration has motivated me to make wearable objects with diverse and different qualities of beauty. Especially, I have thought for a long time about how fashion can strengthen a women’s power living under societal standards that treats gender differently. From this interest, my artwork naturally reflects …

Biovice: A Survival Tool Company, Chubai Liu

Masters Theses

This fictional dystopian society is the background of my work: In the year 2057, Earth’s environment has been deeply polluted, humanity has come to rely on external survival tools to live. BioVice as one of the largest bioengineering company in the world, committing themselves to the production of the most advanced survival tools.

There are two production lines in the BioVice Company. One is the economy line which targets the majority, especially the middle class; while the luxury line targets the wealthy and the elite. The designs of both production lines have futuristic appearances, combining forms from clinical devices and …

Materializing Conflict And Resilience, Neta Ron

Masters Theses

As I was growing up, making objects felt like a superpower. It was, and still is enchanting to take an idea and transform it to an existing, tangible thing. I grew up in a family that encouraged self-sufficiency and creativity. Art has always been a great part of my life and it is an anchor that I rely on when I feel that I need to strengthen myself emotionally. In the last two years, I have been focused on understanding what is the role of making in my life, and why I am attracted to making jewelry. My work allows …

The Last Objects, Melissa Tyson

Masters Theses

All material carries a past. Whether we acknowledge this lineage or not, it exists. It may be to our advantage — as a way of orienting ourselves in our world — to consider the cycles of creation and destruction intrinsic to the objects and materials that surround us. By deliberately pushing material into its next incarnation, and tracing the history of objects, I simultaneously reach forward and backward, determining my place in the world.

My experience as a jeweler has led me to an understanding that what is true for metal is also true for us: matter is neither lost …

Eulogy, Luci Jockel

Masters Theses

My work is a eulogy for all fauna. It involves a ritual act of suture— a ceremonial process of mending and healing— one that functions as a curative process for myself as well as others. While wandering in the woods, or gleaning from animal specimen collections and negotiating with hunters and beekeepers, I gather the remains of fauna in order to make jewelry. I long to restore the fragmented ruins into wholeness. I long to heal what has been broken. From their death comes rebirth, new life. Quietly, these relics reflect the porosity between all things. Jewelry has a history …

Pin (Fibula), Risd Museum, Boris Bally, Jonathan Migliori

Channel

This fibula (pin), used for closing or securing garments, is a masterpiece of ancient gold-working. Tiny animals and figures, mythical and real, cover the pin. They were formed using tiny beads of gold (a process called granulation) fashioned in a fluid, curving style reminiscent of pottery of the seventh century BCE, when the Etruscans reached the height of their technical virtuosity in granulation. In the center of the decoration is a figure common in Etruscan art: the ‘master of the beasts,’ a winged man with two faces. The figure originated in the Near East and became especially prominent in Etruscan …