An Introduction to Multimedia Jewelry -By Hannah Rosner

Originally written for Artisan Jewelry Times

I’m primarily a seed bead artist and lampworker, so it stands to reason that I should be fascinated by other media, especially when I have a looming deadline.  This past year I took a full year away from bead shows to work on redesigning my teaching projects and to allow myself play time with multimedia design work.

When I think of multimedia jewelry, I think of two very different types of work.  The first is created from found object and upcycled materials.  The second uses fiber and other materials not usually found in jewelry.  I’m going to give you a short look at each.

FOUND OBJECT AND RECYCLED MATERIALS JEWELRY

My very first introduction to found object jewelry was in 1993.  I’d taken exactly one metalsmithing class in my life when Robert Ebendorf, a leader in the studio jewelry movement, came to teach at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts where I was teaching a beginning class on beadwork.  Wholly unprepared, I decided to take the class and was thrown into a world in which doll parts and pieces of clock and some stuff I’m pretty sure was once alive was cobbled together into an extraordinary piece of sterling-silver-and-other-stuff adornment.  You can see his work by doing an internet search, checking Pinterest here (https://www.pinterest.com/lorenaangulo/bob-ebendorf/)  or checking out the small collection owned by the Smithsonian Museum here (http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/results/index.cfm?rows=10&q=&page=1&start=0&fq=name:%22Ebendorf%2C%20Robert%22) This was way before any of us knew what “steampunk” meant.  I couldn’t really take it, and made an enormous sterling silver pendant that used a tiny round opal one of my good friends had given me.  Doesn’t sound much like upcycling, does it?  That’s because it wasn’t, but it was all I could handle at the time.

Fast forward two decades, and upcycled steampunk[1] jewelry is everywhere.  Designs range from the simplest pieces – lampwork beads made on antique keys and sewing bobbins-  to complex designs with watch parts and cogs.  Its no longer against design rules to mix metals; copper, silver and brass all work together.

I like adding glass and silver leaf beads that have been lampworked from bottles to my seed bead work, but since its all glass its somewhat debatable as to whether it is truly multimedia.  It has been upcycled.

On the other hand, one of my very favorite bracelets by Bronwen Heilman combines upcycled lampworked bottle glass with bicycle inner tubes .  The final design is edgy and fun.  You can check Bronwen’s website (www.bronwenheilman.com) for classes at her Arizona studio on how to recycle glass into beads.  When I asked her about her work, she shared the following with me: “I am very excited to see that recycling and upcycling has become a jump-off point and not the final point [of a piece of art]. I like taking discarded objects and finding the beauty that these items never had.  I look beyond its original use and create a new definition, a new story.”

Jean Cox has multimedia in both her cuff bracelet design and also in the idea behind it.  Her base for this was a found object – a shoe part!

“It’s fitting that Jules Verne is dreaming of time and space while floating above a coin commemorating the first lunar landing in this Steampunk-inspired piece. When deciding what to use for the base, I chose a rubbery shoe insert, which happily provided an almost chalkboard-like surface, complete with white lettering. The many spiraling jump rings that hold the metal pieces to the base give a Nicolai Tesla vibe, while the brass seed-bead edging adds a touch of Elizabethan elegance.”

FIBER AND NON-TRADITIONAL MATERIALS JEWELRY

We’ve actually already looked at a pair of pieces that use non-traditional materials in the use of bike tires and shoe soles,  but most of the non-traditional work I’ve done in the past few years combines fiber with my beadwork.  I suspect that this had a lot to do with my guilt in not using my theatre/costume design Master’s Degree.  I like the mix of textures that you can get by combining glass beads with fiber.  The spiky cuff bracelet I made using fiber and beads might look like it could do some harm, but those spikes are actually soft – they are made of zippers!  I taught this cuff (titled “Zipperlicious!”) a few years ago at Bead & Button and it was a hit.

Much of Sherry Serafini’s recent work also uses fiber .  Here’s what she has to say about multimedia in bead embroidery:

“Have no fear! Jump in and put whatever pleases you into your bead embroidery.  It is so much fun because there is no limit as to what you can do to your beadwork.   I like to think of my foundation as a blank canvas…adding beads as I go letting them tell me where. Fiber and found objects can lend a wonderful funky hand to your designs.  In the cuff shown, I’ve chosen to wrap wooden rings with silk ribbons and bead around those for my beaded art shown. Shibori….rayons….batiks….anything your heart desires can enhance and add to your already fabulous design!”

A lot of us have two things in common when it comes to multimedia jewelry.  Firstly, we are willing to play with designs and just see where they go.  I don’t tend to plan my own pieces out – instead they evolve on their own.  Secondly, if I see something that is interesting, my first thought now goes to “how can I use this in one of my pieces?’

There’s nothing too weird, to strange, too outlandish.  Be brave!

So, here’s my permission to you: Go Play and Go Have Fun

[1] Steampunk is a subgenre of design which fuses 19^th century steam powered Industrial Revolutionary gizmos with Victorian design and science fiction/fantasy.  I love it.