featured: unknown modernist

sterling silver, rhodocrosite

More old photos of a vintage ring from my personal collection, this one is unsigned. And it's a honker, over 2 inches across the top. I love the way the negative space of the setting follows the grey line of the stone.

4/52 olives & pearls

sterling silver, saltwater pearls

Another sculptural ring with several components - a pair of earrings, a pendant, and a scatter pin.

I see olives.

I made a small silver bar to hold in the pendant in place, but the spring clasp works better.

featured: ed wiener

14k gold, pearl, circa 1970

Some old photos of a ring in my personal collection by modernist jeweler Ed Wiener.

featured: ancient egyptian

gold, ca. 1353–1323 B.C.

From the permanent collection of The Met, this is the gold finger ring of King Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti. The catalog states, "The hieroglyphs on this ring may be read as an ideogram. The two seated figures are probably Akhenaten (left) and Nefertiti (right) as the deities Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture). They were father and mother of the earth and sky, which are symbolically represented by the earth hieroglyph (below) and by the sun disk flanked by two sacred cobras (above)."

featured: lucie veilleux

ebony and pearl

Canadian artist Lucie Veilleux of 3 Dots Jewelry made this fabulous piece for her RAW #2. Lucie's Controlled Chaos Bracelet is a favorite of mine.

featured: elsa peretti

Cabochon Ring
18k gold, rock crystal

Elsa Peretti is my favorite Tiffany designer, her work is so elegant and at times whimsical. From Elsa's blog, "Born in Florence, she studied interior design in Rome. Peretti created jewellery for Oscar de la Renta, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo and Halston. Elsa Peretti has worked exclusively with Tiffany since 1974, creating personal ornaments and tableware in silver, gold, lacquered wood, glass, carved hard stones and bamboo basketry."

Cabochon Rings
Sterling silver, turquoise, rock crystal

featured: ligia rocha

sterling silver, nickel silver

Ligia Rocha lives in Portugal and creates impeccable jewelry with clean, modern lines. This is Ligia's RAW #3, it's a beautifully fabricated hollow form - I especially love the marriage of metals on the top. Check out Ligia's work with Japanese laquer. She also collaborates with her nephew, he sketches and Ligia makes his drawings into jewelry, I love their designs.

featured: art smith

Undulation Ring
Gold, chrysocola, amethyst, carnelian

Art Smith was a NYC-based modernist jeweler, most of his work is dated from the 1940s-70s. I have always found his designs inspiring. The Brooklyn museum featured his work in the exhibition From Village to Vogue in 2009. Smith's Lava Bracelet is one of his best known pieces.

featured: michele grady

sterling silver, brass, druzy quartz

Michele Grady made this fantastic sun ring for Ring a Week #3, I love it. Michelle wrote, "It has been so cold, snowy and cloudy here in NJ that the weather has inspired me to think of sunny summer days. Between the color/sparkle of the stone and the color/shape of brass, they were perfect for what I had in mind! I call this ring the "Sunburst Ring". It is hollow formed and made from oxidized sterling silver, brass & a druzy stone."

3/52 ring plus pin

sterling silver, Morrisonite jasper, saltwater pearl

A ring and scatter pin that combine to make a tiny sculpture. The beautiful Morrisonite jasper cab was a gift from the lovely Tamra Gentry.

RAW 1/52 - 3/52

featured: susanne klemm

Sleeping Beauty Rings

silver, cold enamel

Susanne Klemm made these fabulous botanical rings, cold enamel generally means epoxy resin. Susanne participated in Redlight Design Amsterdam and made some beautiful work during the project.

featured: victoria tillotson

Speedloader Ring
hematite, sterling silver

Victoria Tillotson make gorgeous modern jewelry. Victoria wrote, "I work primarily in sterling silver, and my designs oscillate rather bizarrely between organic and highly regimented forms. I crave precision and like to exploit the almost anti-human quality of machine parts like gears in some designs. Some of this has to do with my love of cars and motorcycles - the aesthetics of the engine. I’m particularly interested in machine and architectonic shapes, in the 2003 Speedloader series, for example."

featured: antique tussie mussie

silver
made in the United States or England, 1860-80

A beautiful antique piece from the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you can view a larger image on the museum's web site. From the catalog:

"This flower or posey holder known as a Tussie (knot of flowers) Mussie (moist moss), was a nosegay for formal wear. It might have replaced a fan, especially in the winter season, as a dressy accessory to be carried. The chain, attached to the holder at one end and fitted with a finger ring at the other end, made the ornament more secure when whirling in the waltz. The 'vase' was stuffed with damp moss which kept the flowers fresh, and a silver pin fit across the flaring, filigree leaf and held the flowers in place."

I have always loved nosegays, they were used to mask the overpowering odors of the medieval period.

featured: emanuela duca

Terra Ring
blackened sterling silver and 18k yellow gold

I love the rough-hewn look of Emanuela Duca's work, check out her Conceptwear.

featured: salima thakker

patinated silver, 18k gold inlay, special cut citrine

Salima Thakker. Wow!

featured: chuck domitrovich

sterling silver, titanium, 18k gold, iolite, garnet

Chuck Domitrovich of Down to the Wire Designs said of his incredible Layer Rings, "Titanium is a great material. It cannot be soldered, so all the connections are cold-- riveting is the main one that I used. These rings were created layer by layer starting with the center and working my way out. Design elements were soldered into place as I went-- always to the silver. I used various styles of rivets. The smallest ones are 18k gold pins, but I also used tube rivets, and in the case of the garnet ring, the sterling lining on the shank is flared out on both sides to also act as a rivet. I cut and drilled the sterling and titanium sheet on a cnc milling machine."

2/52 wood & agate

crazy lace agate, honduran rosewood, copper

I'm currently interested in making rings that stand on their own as small sculpture. I'm really happy with this design, I wish I'd had more time to put into the fabrication but I started late today. The backplate for the agate is too big and the prongs aren't close enough, but the setting for the wood turned out ok. Getting it to balance correctly was the trickiest part.

featured: michael ott

sterling silver, jasper

Michael Ott lives in Spain and makes modern rings with an industrial feel using sterling silver, iron, and gemstones. I greatly admire his work. Michael also takes beautiful photographs, check out his whole flickr stream for those.

featured: marjorie simon

Sterling silver, 22k gold bi-metal, torch-fired vitreous enamel, embossed copper.

YUM!!! I love the bright colors and simple shapes of Marjorie Simon's Ring Candy series. Marjorie recently wrote a wonderful article on contemporary mourning jewelry for Metalsmith Magazine.

featured: 2 roses

My Toaster's Pet Butterfly
Sterling silver, electronic components

This fabulous ring was made by the John and Corliss Rose of 2 Roses Studios. John and Corliss wrote, "If our pets can have appliances, can our appliances have pets? We think so. And our toaster confirmed this."

featured: julia turner

wood, paint, steel

Red Stack Ring by Julia Turner. She had a show at Shibumi Gallery last summer and there's a great blog post about her work and process.

featured: christy klug

oxidized sterling silver, 18K gold, diamonds

A gorgeous ring by Christy Klug, who also does beautiful things with enamel. Check out her website.

featured: revonav

sterling silver and Mexican fire opal

David of Revonav sells his fabulous modern designs on etsy, and he takes polymer clay to another level, check it out.

mosaics

I'm working an artist residency at a local elementary school, the project is tile mosaic. I took some process photos for the kids and thought I'd share. The students arrange the tiles in small groupings and I transfer those to the board, tile around them, glue, and grout. There will be seven or eight 2' x 2' panels created, with picture wire on the backs so that they can be moved around the school if need be.

The students place the tiles and I trap them
in their arrangement with contact paper.

Back in the studio I use an x-acto to cut them out.

Arranged on the board that I've spread with thinset,
I will remove the contact paper tomorrow when everything is dry.

Round glass gems.

stained glass shards

Finished, tomorrow I will grout.