PLUMDINGER STUDIO

Artist Statement

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My creativity is driven by a delight in the body-adorned,

as well as a narrative quality implicit in each piece.

Over the past four decades, I have worked to develop

a jewelry style that is focused on the capacity of my jewels

to speak with a voice that reflects my inspiration and also

speaks clearly to those who will eventually wear my jewels.

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My jewels are intrinsically wearable art, small sculptural adornment in precious metal, enamels, and gemstones,

made to be experienced, flaunted, displayed on a person.

 

My attraction to jewels began early, with an aunt’s

enormous pink leather jewelry box, filled with many

trays of costume jewelry. I was dazzled by these jewels.

I knew only that I had been given a chance to enter a tale of opulence, a story about the transformative power of adornment.

  

I am a colorist in many ways in my life, and

gemstones and vitreous enamels satisfy that itch.

My jewels are a collaboration between me,

the techniques, the materials, and the enamels,

together generating the body of my work.

 

All my jewels explore the fusion of their elements

with the stories they relate, each object speaking

as a collection of connected, coherent imagery.

 

Aldous Huxley noted the transformative nature of

stained glass windows, fireworks and gemstones.

However central its wearability may be, it is the 

possibility of that transformation that I hope to bring

to my jewels, as they become the outward expression

of who we hope to become.

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