Artemisia Spring

The Wonderland Collection

It's the middle of winter, the flurry of the holidays has subsided and I sit reflecting upon the idea that hibernating is a necessary part of the year for not only bears and groundhogs but for  humans as well. There is something so restorative about curling up in a blanket in front of a roaring fire and doing nothing but that. As I sit listening to my latest new passion, audiobooks and emerge myself into an alternate surreality my muse springs forward like fireworks on the fourth of july filling my head with overlapping images and colors bursting to be realized and so; well rested and restored the new collection emerges.

Wonderland Collection:

This collection was inspired by the Alice in Wonderland children’s  fairytale, filled with surreal images of late rabbits, mad tea parties, potions that make you shrink and a heroine both naive and cunning. Each charm used in these magical pieces are references to another world magical, ethereal and full of wonderment. The pieces are playful and derivative.

Perfumed Violets

Ss perfume bottle hand etched, Rome, Italy circa 1900, Sardinian amethyst fertility bell, rose quartz, amethyst, freshwater pearl, ss toggle closure American 1980, ss chains, circa 1900-1940 handmade

Make me little

Mad Hatter

Dondola

Capture me

Looking Glass

Faith in Me

A Sad Reality

soaring above Carriage Barn Antiques


  

Each november sees our annual road trip to upstate New York, this year we hit a few new Antique shops along the way. Sad thing about our  enduring economic crisis, the antique shops are filled with furniture estates are letting go and jewelry is sparse. Gold and silver, as of the last three years has been ever steadily rising and is about the only commodity one can count on not devaluing. The long and short of it, the antique dealers are hurting as we all are scrapping most of their gold and silver to stay a float. Unfortunately it means a loss in Antiquity which will never return. It is precisely for this reason that American Victorian jewelry in gold fill and silver is so rare, as during the great Depression the same thing occurred. I'm saddened to see this happening in my lifetime. There was a time when I began Artemisia where the selection of Antiques was embarrassing, overflowing from glass cabinets in every Antique store. Now what is mostly left is real junk, plastic, metal alloys that peel and turn color, a lot of 1970's baubles. Adversely the extremely fine in tact estate pieces in fine gold remain, a shame really to alter their appearance, not to mention bringing Artemisia to an entirely new and prohibitive price point.

Just at a time when Artemisia is increasing, supply of materials is decreasing.

 

lust, antique printmakers tool chest, refurbished $400

Fall collections and campaign in the US

Fall Inspiration

Victorian drawing of how Chatelaines are worn 

Chatelaine belt

Chatelaine circa 1780

Chatelaines, women of the early to late 1800's wore these amazing collection of tools hung from a number of chains and fixed to the waist by either a belt or a hook on the waistband of a skirt. This practical piece of jewelry worn by working women through to nobility varied wildly in decoration and metal. The word "Chatelaine" is french and means the keeper of the keys or the mistress of the castle, the image that this meaning conjures in my head is one of an iconic Anne Boleyn the famed first mistress of the Henry the VIII. In practicality the Chatelaine had no such "forbidden fruit" connotation but nonetheless the double entendre of the meaning of the word in French and it's use in English  fascinates me and has inspired a  collection using pieces from Chatelaines and creating necklaces to be worn by the modern day woman all the while knowing the history of that which she is wearing and giving license to her to imagine being the keeper of the castle keys, the seamstress from the 1800's, the Queen of England or even the mistress.

Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII from the Tudors