Body Adornment as Art

Jewelry is an extremely powerful, intimate form of artistic expression.  It wraps itself around you, it touches your skin, and connects with the warmth of your body, imbuing it with life. Jewelry  is a form of non-verbal communication, created and worn to convey and evoke an emotional response.  Its message is read and its impact is felt in a matter of seconds.

As the artist, the jewelry I create is imbued with the expressions of my emotions, thoughts, and feelings.  In my work, equal consideration is given to the wearer and the beholder.   

As the wearer, you respond to the work subjectively, and you become the curator and gallery for the work when it is worn.  For you, the power of jewelry lies in its ability to transform when adorned.  Jewelry takes over.  You can never be divorced from a sensory experience, because it rests against your skin the entire time it is worn.  You would not adorn yourself in jewelry that did not touch your soul or speak to your heart.  


In thinking about your response to your own jewelry, you, as the wearer, imagine observing a response in the beholder.  You make a deliberate choice of which piece of jewelry to wear and where you will place it on your body.  In this way, your subjectivity is revealed in conscious action, and you become an artist yourself  Jewelry is your medium-an extremely intimate expression, a symbol of your true essence.

In turn, the beholder also responds to this image subjectively and has a personal response to the wearer and her jewelry, intuitively recognizing the transformation.  The power of jewelry as a medium of art lies not only in its form and function, its relationship to the body, and unique possibilities for display, but also in its multiple layers of transference. In effect, jewelry becomes a transmutation of emotional experience from the artist to the wearer to the beholder.



Here is a project I did at SCAD.  The concept of the project was to convey the transformative properties of jewelry. 

Click to view as slide show (initially presented with the images separate and consecutive for maximum impact-as opposed to side by side, as shown here) 

Unadorned (2013) 














Photo Editing by Lauren Funk Marin