fancifuldevices

My first attempts at jewelry were inspired by an upcoming trip home to Uruguay to see my extended family. Having 8 women to find gifts for, I had the idea to cover little wooden shapes with paper ephemera I had collected for the mixed media collages I’d been into at the time. I was hooked and ended up making more pieces than I had relatives to give them to.

It was while learning the process of collage that I discovered Etsy and the artists making assemblage jewelry using vintage and antique parts. I became instantly obsessed, pouring jealously over the images, wanting to play with objects as they did and create what was essentially, amazingly, wearable collage.

While the process of putting together various found elements into a whole piece inspired me, there was something missing. Most of the work out there was very European in style and very girly, whereas I had a more global point of view and am personally more of a tomboy.

The process to bring together my world view, experiences and obsessions into a single aesthetic began. As I taught myself more advanced techniques and became more and more fixated on creating, I looked beyond the standard range of materials, plundering hardware stores, family cupboards and junk markets. My hometown in Uruguay, where antique trinkets seem to grow on trees, provided endless inspirational fodder. I combine these salvaged pieces with my own elements made from glass, tin, polymer clay, resin and paper.

I’m entirely self-taught, in love with the process of experimenting and discovering the new. Every element is either made or altered from it’s original state - many of my chains, beads and focals are scratch-made with methods perfected by trial and error.

My jewelry represents a harmony of opposition; old is paired with new, feminine contrasts with masculine, rustic mixes with refined, western is enriched with tribal, functional elaborated with decorative.... All these dualities and more are synthesized into an artifact of imagination that tells an alternative story of our past or perhaps a myth for the future. It represents an imaginary world where the powerful and powerless blend painlessly.

For regular updates on my process, as well as a whole lot of silliness, visit my blog and follow my Instagram (links to the right).