ETRUSCAN
COLLAR
About the Kit...
Bead
weaving is a collection of hundreds of different
stitching techniques and strategies for creating
pieces that approximate a piece of cloth.
The
Ndebele stitch, sometimes called Herringbone
Stitch, is a loose-knit stitch that lends
itself to many creative variations. It results
in a herringbone pattern, or zig-zag effect.
This
Etruscan Collar Necklace consists of two overlapping
strips of Ndebele Stitch, a chain embellishment,
and an attached choker clasp. The strips are
overlapped so that they curve slightly along
the inner edge.
The
challenge, here for me, was to create a sophisticated,
wearable, and attractive piece that exemplified
concepts about contemporizing traditional
jewelry. At about the same time I was
trying to conceptualize this piece, I had
been asked to lead an 8-day workshop on Jewelry
Design in Cortona, Italy. I pretty quickly
married my design work to this teaching opportunity,
and created a workshop called “Contemporizing
Etruscan Jewelry”.
Things
clicked. I found an Etruscan Collar that I
immediately connected with. See image below:
There is considerable artistry and craftsmanship
underlying Etruscan jewelry. I
began to interpret and analyze this piece.
I first broke it down in terms of its
Traditional Components.
Contemporizing
Traditional Jewelry has to do
with how you take these particular traditional
forms and techniques, and both add your personal
style to the pieces, as well as make them
more relevant to today’s sense of fashion
and style. The challenge for the designer
is how to keep traditional ideas essential
and alive for today's audience.
Part
of the artistry of the jewelry designer has
to do with the control over color. Picking
colors is about making strategic choices.
And picking Bead Colors is about understanding
how the bead asserts its needs for color.The
jewelry designer must be strategic in the
placement of color within the piece. The designer
achieves balance and harmony, partly through
the placement of colors. The designer determines
how colors are distributed within the piece,
and what movement and rhythm and effect result.
And the designer determines what proportions
of each color are used, where in the piece,
and how.
One
set of color-theories, widely used in our
Etruscan Collar, employed to make these kinds
of choices have to do with Simultaneity
Effects. Colors in the presence
of other colors get perceived differently,
depending on the color combination.
In the Etruscan Collar project...
LearnToBead
Goals:
- Creating a design-plan for a layered bead woven necklace collar
-
Strategically selecting a color palette, especially
in reference to "simultaneity effects"
-
Implementing the Ndebele Stitch using a 4mm
cube and two 2mm beads to create two strips
which will later overlap
-
Reinforcing the Ndebele strips
- Attaching and assembling two layers of Ndebele
Stitched strips using a hybrid brick stitch/ndebele
stitch technique
-
Weaving in a decorative chain element along
the inner boundaries of the piece, using a
bookbinding stitch
- Attaching a choker clasp assembly
- Some ideas about what it means to "contemporize"
a traditional piece of jewelry
Prerequisites:
-
Orientation To Beads & Jewelry Findings
- Introductory Knowledge of Ndebele stitch
-
An intermediate level knowledge of and experience
with bead weaving
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