Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Wire works

My work is almost always associated with a curl or two – or many. It seems as if I just HAVE to create jewelry centered around or adorned with this particular shape. Do I have a curly mind? Perhaps that is the reason… Anyways, these days I’m again working with my curly hoops.


They have turned out to be quite a seller, and I see why: Especially the simple version appeals to many different kind of women – both the very young as well as the mature ones. A few days ago I sold a pair to a woman around 60 (at least) who had decided to get holes in her ears, and so happily bough a pair of the small, simple curls – without having the holes yet!

Inspired by the interest for my curly hoops, I have thrown myself into experimenting with the design again. I created a large batch of the small simple curls of cause – as I said, they tend to sell quickly – and then headed for new explorations within the more complex ones.


I work with 1 mm wire, mostly silver, but at times also gold. Yesterday I created a pair of the simple curls with some scrap red gold I had. That of cause required melting, milling and drawing down the metal first, which takes some time. But I love the irrational feeling of growing wealth as I see small blob of gold, which looks like nothing, elongate more and more. Of cause the amount of metal stays the same, but it FEELS as if I get more of it! The result is well worth the work, even though I had to create special little red gold bails for the pendants. What a fiddly task that is!

So why is wire a medium that I return to over and over again? Well, it’s like drawing. I draw in the air with wire and pliers. As I work, my mind finds peace and I literally go into some kind of meditative state, where the shapes, lines, curves and curls easily manifest themselves in my mind and transfer into reality through my hands. Afterwards I am always a bit stunned and awed by my creations and deeply cherish the ability to turn my dreams into solid matter.