Unwound Wire Gradually Taking Form and Making Shapes

It all started when I unwound some broken guitar strings for no particular reason. They were just sitting around, and made a cool whirring sound when unwound. So I was left with thin wire hanging off a half-wound string. I looped the intact section into a circle, and drew a spiderweb across it with the connected wire. I then had a small spiderweb pendant, and I thought a bug would look nice trapped inside. I made one with guitar-string wire and installed it within the web. The wings of the bug were just empty wire loops, so I filled in the negative space with glue, to give them a gossamer quality. Ultimately, I ended up painting the clear glue membrane with nail polish, and Voila: my unique method of stained glass-like sculpture was born. Minus the glue, this method of free hanging nail-polish, now finished with a shiny resin, is still what I use to make all of my pieces.

I mostly made jewelry and very tiny, rough sculptures for friends at first. I once bought an amtrak rail pass and made sculptures on the fly when traveling to finance a month long cross-country trip. This was my first selling experience; I'd hang necklaces off my arm and just stand somewhere to sell. I did little things like this for a while, and throughout this time made important developments in my technique, such as luckily finding a make and model of nail polish topcoat that you can draw over very large wire frames, and have it harden quickly. This allowed me to fill in much larger spaces, thus increasing the size potential of my sculpture.

Weddings & Wire began at my sister's wedding. I had made her cake topper: a rough approximation of my "The Tree Swing" sculpture, as tree branches were a common motif throughout her wedding (look on the sides of my shop banner to see a detail from this first piece). It was a big hit and some other engaged couples who attended, commissioned me that day. I listed the topper on ETSY sometime later, and orders began trickling in. Like for my sister, I used the themes, colors, & motifs from my clients to construct custom works, using these details and their personal narratives (how they met, first dates, special connections etc) to invent my initial designs. I still really enjoy this process; turning a story or interpersonal quality- something intangible- into an object. I often still make fully custom pieces, and offer customizable details for all my designs. I think if I tallied it up my best selling design is "The Tree Swing," my first cake topper.

It's been quite cool to share this randomly concocted, idiosyncratic art-making technique with people, and to make specific works intended to speak the loudest to just two people. I was actually able to make Weddings & Wire my full-time job for a few years, and while it was fun, it was incredibly challenging. To plan, deal, execute, market, box, ship, update etc is such a laborious outing, and I have so much respect for all the shopowners out there who do so. For me though, I have decided to work a little less by starting Medical School in the fall of 2015. I am now trying to shift my focus to sharing my method, rather than my little works, with the world. I would love nothing more than for people to try out the processes that I took a decade to refine, and see what interesting and awesome things they come up with!