Orange Neckpiece (J287)

This piece was made as part of a series of wool embroidered and coloured wood jewellery for 'The New Organics' exhibition that I took part of in the summer of 2008. Considering the exhibition's focus on natural and recycled materials I wanted to find a replacement material for my plastic dip-coating and settled on using painted wood. The textile element was a natural progression from already having worked with a range of textile materials and techniques. In this instance I created almost block colours by embroidering thick hand-dyed wool on to grey felt. My interest in working with textiles comes from that I am interested in the relationship between jewellery and garments. I have made many brooches playing with the material juxtaposing, both within the piece itself and how the materials in the jewellery works together with the clothes it is worn with. For 'The New Organics' exhibition I wanted to make a few necklaces and it was a concern for me to figure out how to make the necklace 'whole' and not just a pendant. By embroidering orange semi-precious stones, Cornelian, on to the organic wool and then extending this field of colour out of the embroidered piece as the beginning of the 'necklace' there was a distinct connection between the two. Combining these beads with smaller orange glass beads and finally vivid lilac beads, Chalcedony, gave contrast and an interesting mixture of colour to the piece. The lilac beads are attached, almost like a border to the embroidered centre, by careful spacing using crimping. At the time of making it was a new thing for me to use wood, something that now is creeping more and more into my work and it opened up a whole new colour palette for my jewellery, especially used in combination with the great colours of the dyed wool.