Welcome to our favorite week of the year, NYC Jewelry Week! Here on Future Heirloom, we’re celebrating by bringing you special behind-the-scenes content on some of our favorite programs, events, and exhibition every day this week. Check in each day for a new feature on the happenings at NYC Jewelry Week.
To kick off our week-long content, we’re giving you an exclusive glimpse into the making of the exhibition Bonded: Jewelry from the Stay Gold Collective with Liz Kantner, the exhibition’s curator and founder of the collective. Read a bit about the exhibition concept below, and then we’ll chat with Liz about the inspiration for the exhibition and some of her favorite inclusions.
Group shots of the jewelry in Bonded: Jewelry from the Stay Gold Collective
Exhibition Statement for Bonded: Jewelry from the Stay Gold Collective
Jewelry inherently tells a story, and that story is shaped between the maker, the wearer, and our culture. Each element provides influence on how jewelry speaks to us. As 2020 formed its own story of isolation and uncertainty, connection and community became the focus of many artists.
In the past 18 months the way we form connections fundamentally changed. What was once seen as an intrinsic part of the human experience became rare as many were pulled back from society and disconnected from everyday life. The isolation that resulted from social distancing challenged how we formed bonds, and catalyzed moments of precious solidarity as new communities formed. From this unique time the Stay Gold Collective, a group of independent designers founded by Liz Kantner, came together.
Bonded: Jewelry from the Stay Gold Collective seeks to showcase jewelry created during this period, focusing on moments of connection and community. Each tells a story.
Future Heirloom: Can you walk us through your background in jewelry, and tell us a bit about the Stay Gold Collective? Liz Kantner: The Stay Gold Collective is a group I started because I wanted to provide affordable consulting for jewelry designers. My first job in the industry was as Marketing Manager for Todd Reed and I saw how generous he was with his time and support for emerging designers. I later had the opportunity to curate the New Designer Gallery at JA New York and loved helping designers prepare and participate in their first trade shows, I was also so inspired by the community the selected designers created each show. While the jewelry industry is a hard one to break into, I’ve seen so many designers wanting to support each other and I want to help cultivate more of that!
Kelty PelechytikAlison MacleodRings in Bonded: Jewelry from the Stay Gold Collective
FH: What are some of the highlights of the exhibition for you? Could you give us a peek at a favorite piece or story? LK: One of my favorite stories submitted for the exhibition is from Hilary Finck:
“Like most jewelry designers, I work alone in my studio. I generate designs that I like to think are original ⎼ designs that no one else would come up with. Well, we all know that in today’s social media climate, it is nearly impossible to not be influenced by other designers’ creations. In late summer 2020, one of my stone sellers posted some gorgeous rutilated quartz spheres, which immediately sent my creative juices into hyperdrive. Instantly I imagined what is now my Captured Orb Necklace, but I was unsure of whether it would work. I made some sketches, bought the stones, and waited with baited breath for them to arrive.
Jewelry by Hilary Finck
When I got the spheres, I pushed all of my other work aside and created my very first Captured Orb Necklace. In my tiny jewelry world, these necklaces became a hit, I made new ones whenever I could get my hands on more stones, and posted them on Instagram to much fanfare. In spring 2021, while scrolling through Instagram, I saw a very similar orb design by a jeweler with about 30x more followers than myself ⎼ a much more well-known and beloved designer. We followed each other’s work and respected each other. My heart sank. Thoughts went through my head: Did she copy my work? Will people think I copied her work? It’s a jeweler’s worst nightmare. So, I contacted the designer, let her know that I felt she had copied one of my signature designs, and politely asked her to not make anymore of those pieces. It felt terrible to send this message, but I felt that I needed to protect my work.
However, she responded that she had also bought the sphere from the same supplier at the same time in 2020 as I did, and had an idea worked out for how to set it. When she saw my new necklace posted on Instagram, she said that her heart sank because it was similar to what she had designed in her head. Kindly, she agreed to cease making more of those designs, but that no longer felt right to me. Instead I asked if she would be comfortable sharing our story about these two necklaces on our Instagram feeds ⎼ discussing our understanding that two artists can indeed come up with similar designs at the same time, and as long as it’s not nefarious, this coincidence is something that can be celebrated. So, that’s what we did. We were so relieved that honest and open communication led to a positive result. It felt great, and it felt right, and our respective communities were thrilled to know this story and to support two female artists who took the collaborative route for an issue that could have instead been very acrimonious and hurtful.”
Hilary Finck, Stay Gold Collective member
Erica BelloJudith HaasMejia Jewelry
FH: Is there anything else you’d like to share about the exhibition, or your curatorial experience? LK: These past two years especially, I, and many of the designers in the group were so grateful to have a community to lean on. That feeling of support is what inspired the whole exhibition. Every designer within the Collective was invited to submit pieces and it really all came together beautifully. Also, HUGE thanks to Erica Bello, a member of the group who helped with the name / copy.
Group shots of the jewelry in Bonded: Jewelry from the Stay Gold Collective
See the designs and read the stories from members of the Stay Gold Collective on the exhibition website. 20% of the profits from sales will be donated to NoLo Studios’ Residency Program. Find out more about the exhibition and corresponding events here. To hear more about the exhibition, attend the exhibition artist talk, The Power of Community: A Discussion, on Tuesday, November 16, 2021 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM. Register here.
Exhibition description and information gathered from the Stay Gold website. Images, interview responses, and quotes courtesy of Liz Kantner. Feature edited and compiled by Future Heirloom Editor Jackie Andrews.
It’s no secret: here at NYC Jewelry Week—and especially at Future Heirloom—we’re big fans of maximalist statement jewelry. Ceramicist-turned-jeweler Anthony Sonnenberg’s jewelry works bring statement jewelry to a new level, with creative and colorful material combinations, meticulous craftsmanship, and elegant yet playful proportions. Future Heirloom Editor Jackie Andrews sat down with Anthony to discuss how he got into jewelry making, what excites him about making wearable sculpture, and how ceramics and jewelry come together harmoniously in his practice. For all of that — plus an exhibition tour of his latest solo show, I’m Gonna Dance The Way I Feel at Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, Florida — keep reading.
Sonnenberg’s Orchid Cloud necklace with Rainbow Central Piece; Sterling Silver, over thirty different varieties of precious and semi-precious stones.
“My Jewelry practice is a direct and natural outgrowth of my larger sculptural practice in both the physical and conceptual sense. Jewelry however, allows me to take certain aspects from this larger practice to a new acute degree. The power of beauty, the mechanics and consequences of desire, and the collapsing of time and social hierarchies, all issues I deal with thoroughly in my other practices, are in the jewelry made more direct and intensified. The constant presence of histories both great and small in the form of found object and art historical reference continue, but in a more intimate way as they are explored in direct collaboration with the living body. These presences manifest in many forms that range from the personal, to societal, and the geological, whether it be using recycled heirloom silver, to inset ancient roman coins, to timeless, precious gems and fossils. The goal of the works at surface level seems to be simple: to dazzle and to awe. However, as always in my work, the jewelry also seeks an alternative and more complicated effect, to boost the confidence and self-love we all have within, while at the same time reminding ourselves of the small but precious place every individual occupies in the history of our planet.”
Anthony Sonnenberg’s Artist Statement for I’m Gonna Dance the Way I Feel
Another view of Sonnenberg’s Orchid Cloud necklace with Rainbow Central Piece; Sterling Silver, over thirty different varieties of precious and semi-precious stones.
Future Heirloom: As jewelry is a somewhat recent development in your practice, can you share how you first started making jewelry? Anthony Sonnenberg: I started making jewelry as a way of moving forward in a less than perfect situation. About nine years ago, I had just graduated with my MFA, was bouncing unsuccessfully from job to job, had very little money and only had a table in one room of my two room apartment to work from. I had a lot of random beads and bits of metal that I had squirreled away from different projects in grad school (adornment as a concept has been a part of my practice, pretty much from the beginning) and a basic knowledge of low temperature soldering that I had taught myself and which I knew I could source materials from any major home improvement store. Considering all the elements aligning in this moment, jewelry seemed like a no brainer. That is how the proto-bronze flow pieces started.
At the same time, I also returned back to the metal flower making technique which I had also been self-teaching and developing for about five years before. Funnily enough, that part of the practice started in a previous similar situation that I had found myself in after graduating from undergrad. From about 2013-2014, I focused on making jewelry pretty heavily with somewhat mediocre success. I was so limited in access to materials, equipment and space, and there was only so far that I could go. However, this is when the ball definitely started rolling, I knew I was excited about jewelry, I knew it was sort of possible, but I had to put it on the back burner for a while. The ceramic, sculpture and performance side in my career started getting traction and I put jewelry on hold for a time.
Fast forward to two years ago, I’ve got a career going as a fine artist, I’m in my first teaching job with an actual salary and I buy some sheet silver for the first time. I then discovered that the soldering method I’ve been using for almost a decade works with silver, something that I assumed for many years and for no real reason would not be possible. Along with that many of the road blocks that had cut my previous adventure in jewelry short were now gone and jewelry making has been at the forefront of my mind since then.
Sonnenberg’s Funny Face Cuff; Brass, copper electroplated leaf, sterling silver, Ruby, star sapphire, emerald, pink coral, and other precious and semi-precious stones.
FH: What excites you about making jewelry? AS: The difficulty in this question is of course in where to start. I think it’s best to begin with that which is hardest to put into words. The challenge to mix precision of engineering with a direct formal exploration of the timeless question: what makes something beautiful, that is at the core of jewelry making, can at times obsess me. Once an idea or series of objects align, I can feel the need to make a new piece coming on like a fever. I then have to fight to clear out my schedule to make the time I need to sit down and bring the thing out of my head into the world. In a weird way, it feels like the most primal of all the different modes of my practice.
Urn (Ekstasis); Porcelain over stoneware and found ceramic tchotchkes, glaze, 12L x 13w x 24h inches (Left); and Rainbows and silver Dollars Necklace; Sterling silver, found antique Morgan silver dollar, vintage silver half dollars, semi-precious stones (Right)
The other quality of jewelry making that keeps me excited about it is the apparent, at least from my perspective, underdog status of jewelry in the larger art world. While previous underdogs like ceramics and textiles have been suddenly discovered like manna in the desert over the last decade and a half, the art world still doesn’t seem to know what to do with jewelry with a concept behind it. I know there are certainly many exceptions to my observation, but I have not found much disagreement when discussing this idea with other metal workers. However, the thing about being an underdog is that it leaves the door open for anything to be possible. The stakes are low and since jewelry has been around as long as humans have, there is an endless ocean of past masterpieces to draw and learn from. From my viewpoint as a maker and creative person, sometimes the most fertile creative fields are the ones that no one is looking at. If historical precedent is to be believed then it is clear that jewelry with purpose will have its day in the spotlight again soon enough, I only hope I’ve caught the train before it leaves the station.
FH: What’s next for your jewelry practice, or your practice overall? Do you have any plans for new jewelry projects that you’re particularly excited about? AS: The short answer to this question is to keep learning and challenging myself. Right now, I’m in that wonderful stage where it feels like I learn something new and reach a new level with every piece. I want to keep that fire going. I have so much to learn, but I think at the forefront would be adding skills like enameling, engraving, and electroplating into the mix. Once again I am, like most makers, faced with the problem of access to essential equipment, as I am not being current attached to any institution with a metals program, but also feeling lucky to be learning in a time when digital spaces like youtube allow free access to so much practical knowledge that was not there when I first started.
Silver Flow Bracelet (Rainbow with clovers) Sterling Silver, amethyst, citrine, opals, coral, moon stone, turquoise, carnelian, garnet, chrysocolla, rhodochrosite (Top Left) and Double Tier Chandelier (Fabulous Faggot Fantasy); Porcelain over stoneware and found ceramic tchotchkes, glaze, steel, brass, electric lights, 27L x 27w x 40h inches (Top Right and Bottom).
FH: What does The Power of Jewelry mean to you? AS: It would be fair to say that I come mainly from a ceramics background, and in that background there is a lot of talk of the potential for intimacy. The way that a ceramic vessel can fit into the domestic sphere and interact with our bodies in ways that are not always glamorous but can yield powerfully meaningful connections between person and object that are essential to life in a way that the more grand arenas of the art world can never really match. Now, while I do think all this is true, I think it is actually much more true for jewelry.
Sonnenberg’s Charlemagne Pendant Necklace Central Piece; Bronze, brass, copper, silver, found antique Byzantine and Roman coins, topaz, citrine, opal, malachite, amethyst, smokey and clear quartz, garnet, tourmaline, carnelian, and lapis lazuli.
“What could be more intimate than a necklace or ring that a person wears for their whole life? History is full of stories of people willing to risk their life in the most unimaginable horrific situations to save a piece of jewelry with no real monetary value but of extreme emotional importance. A piece of jewelry can speak to the wealth of a nation, the love of a lifetime or be a statement about how you see the world. The idea that something so small, and in a sense everyday, can have such an impact is to my mind the essence of what it means to be powerful.”
Anthony Sonnenberg on The Power of Jewelry
Sonnenberg’s The Pink Lady Necklace (Pink, white, gold); Brass, found antique miniature portrait, antique roman coin, found enameled petals, pearls, pink coral, pink quartz, pink opal, rhodochrosite, bone.
FH: Finally, how can our readers best support your work? AS: I would like to start by thanking you for the generosity of this question, I can’t remember the time someone asked me this. This is basic but important to state: the easiest and most direct way to support me (or any artist for that matter) is to buy my work. I always say that every piece I sell means another one is able to get made and my ultimate consistent goal in life is to just keep making.
Beyond that, I am looking for help in finding my place within the jewelry community. So if there are any interested and willing curators, educators, or jewelry historians that would be interested in a studio visit with me, virtual or otherwise, I would really appreciate the opportunity to gain some outside perspective. As a maker, whatever your perspective is, it’s bound to have a blind spot or two. Finding these through critique or conversation is an essential element to the fine tuning of a practice and undoubtedly an important next step for me to embark on.
Anthony Sonnenberg: I’m Gonna Dance The Way I Feel is on view at Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, Florida from October 23 – November 25, 2021. You can view the exhibition on Mindy Solomon’s website here. You can find more of Anthony Sonnenberg’s work on his website, and follow him on Instagram @anthonysonnenberg.
More About Anthony Sonnenberg Born in 1986 in Graham, TX, Anthony Sonnenberg earned a BA with an emphasis in Italian and Art History in 2009 and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2012. Notable exhibitions include; State of the Art II, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2020); the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX (2019); The Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA (2019); the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2018); the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX (2018); Lawndale Art Center, Houston TX (2015); The Old Jail Art Center, Albany TX (2013); the Texas Biennial (2011 & 2013); Old Post Office Museum and Art Center, Graham, TX (2012); Colab Projects, Austin, TX (2012) and the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (2011). Mr. Sonnenberg lives in Fayetteville AR and Conway AR, where he is currently the inaugural Artist in Residence at the Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College.
Our sincere thanks to Anthony Sonnenberg and Mindy Solomon Gallery for this feature. Interview responses and artist statement by Anthony Sonnenberg. Images courtesy of Anthony Sonnenberg for Mindy Solomon Gallery exhibition, I’m Gonna Dance The Way I Feel. Interview conducted and feature edited, compiled, and formatted by Future Heirloom Editor Jackie Andrews.
Today we’re thrilled to share a special tour of interdisciplinary artist Ali Hval’s solo show, Cosmetic Justice, currently on view at North Iowa Area City College in Mason City, Iowa. We asked Ali to give us the inside scoop on her latest work, her relationship to jewelry, how she began making her quintessential giant wall jewelry sculptures, and what’s next for her practice. Read on for all of that, plus what material she’s working with next, why she’ll never get sick of rhinestones, and of course, lots of images of her gem-encrusted work. Let’s tour Cosmetic Justice!
Before we dive in, here’s a bit more background on Ali: Ali Hval is an interdisciplinary artist currently living and working in Iowa City. Her work combines painting, fabric, ceramic, sculpture, and installation. She received her MFA with Honors at the University of Iowa in Painting and Drawing with a minor concentration in Ceramics in 2019. Ali was a 2015 Windgate Fellow through the Center for Craft in Asheville, North Carolina, and is also a 2021 recipient of the Culture & Resilience Grant from the Iowa Arts Council.
Installation shot of Cosmetic Justice at NIACC in Mason City, Iowa. Photography by Alexis Beucler.
My work is a balancing act: one between the sensuality of forms and the innocence and playfulness of the materials I use: sparkling rhinestones, oversized plastic gems, feathery pom-poms, sumptuous fabrics, glossy vinyl, and liquid latex. I am interested in how women collectively and individually discover their sexuality through clothing, experiences, and relationships. My work is an ongoing attempt to explore ways to embrace my sexuality in ways that are liberating opposed to limiting and based solely on conditioned social and familial expectation. There is some in-between area that exists between these two extreme points on a spectrum, a balance I unearth in my work to understand my own relationship to my body.
The sculptural wall pieces I make are an unconventional marriage between era-specific jewelry, bodily forms, objects of pleasure, and home decor. They embrace, highlight, and empower sensuality and femininity rather than hiding or denying it, as well as acknowledging the awkwardness, humor, and performance that can come with it. My pieces are interdisciplinary in nature, joining the craft-based mediums of ceramics and fabric with painting and sculpture. I use ceramics in an unconventional way, beginning a piece by sculpting something structural that other parts and pieces will later be attached to. Then, I paint the fired ceramic piece with metallic paint (often mixed with eyeshadow!) and meticulously dot it with tiny rhinestones one by one. Finally, I attach other forms made from a variety of materials, like fabric and beauty supplies, to this ceramic component. The completed forms I use reflect my interest in adornment and the relentless critique and politicization of the body: they imply bodies, brooches, earrings, and nipple tassels, among other adornments.
Ali Hval’s Artist Statement for Cosmetic Justice
Installation shot of Cosmetic Justice at NIACC in Mason City, Iowa. Photography by Alexis Beucler.
Future Heirloom: What led you to start making these oversized jewelry forms? Ali Hval: Increasing a piece of jewelry’s scale automatically gives them a more powerful presence. Being quiet and understated never felt like the right move for my work, especially now during a time where women’s bodily autonomy is being threatened. Hanging at the height of an average person, my pieces move beyond being a pair of earrings to asserting an overwhelming presence in a room: they become a stand-in for a body. They are assertive and loud, demanding attention. Covered in materials seen as archetypically feminine, like rhinestones, glossy latex, and glitzy fabrics, these objects call out to a viewer from across the room. The specific forms I use have elements to them which, when increased in size and wrapped in shimmering fabric and rhinestones, become more seductive and bodily.
A lot of the forms I use are actually drawn from jewelry and accessories I already own, and the ones that aren’t are a culmination of what I unearth from the vast world of that wonderful little thing we call online shopping. A lot of my research for the appearance of these things comes from browsing accessory stores online: I pluck elements from vintage and contemporary jewelry alike, collecting and organizing screen captures into a folder on my phone or computer. I study the chain of a necklace, the post and hook settings of an earring, or the proportions of a bracelet, then work to collage and edit them into three-dimensional works in my studio.
The very first oversized jewelry form I created was a massive pair of five-foot tall tassel earrings inspired by a pair I own: ones with a very similar form, although with slightly different proportions and coloration. The tassels are made from a deep pink fabric that shimmers red and white, and the earring “caps” are ceramic painted in gold and studded with iridescent rainbow rhinestones. Increased to this size and hung on the wall in a pair inches from one another, they resemble nipple tassels as well. After making my first piece like this, I wanted to continue exploring this feeling of how adornment generates awareness of being seen in a space. I am treading this line between something sexual and something more seemingly innocent. A small piece of jewelry enlarged and abstracted becomes performative from across the room, an expression of bodily autonomy and self-awareness of femininity.
Future Heirloom:A quintessential description of your work would be decadent material use. How did you start working with the materials you use most frequently in your work? Do you have a favorite material? AH: The first time I ever worked with fabric was as an undergrad student. In art school, one of my professors always repeated the importance of artists being resourceful above everything else. Taking his words to heart, I chopped up my twin-sized bed sheet into squares which I then covered in bleeding black shapes. This became my first floor installation—absolutely punk rock compared to the gilded and sugary-sweet colors saturating my sculptures now. Regardless of what that first piece looked like, I recall enjoying the fluidity of fabric and how easily it could be folded up, carried, and worked on elsewhere.
Later in grad school, I attended an artist talk by Faith Ringgold, a woman who uses the medium of a quilt. She spoke about how she could have a show ready to travel simply by rolling up her quilts and throwing them in her car trunk. I loved the ease of that and still think about portability and storage in my work, especially as someone who lives alone and makes a lot of sculptures! I think practicality and sustainability is not discussed enough in the production of art. You not only have to enjoy making your work, but also be able to sustain the way you’re making and storing it depending on your living circumstances. There’s only so much of your own art you can hang in your living space, and with my work, I can easily fold up the fabric bits as they are not permanently attached to the ceramic structures.
Installation shot of Cosmetic Justice at NIACC in Mason City, Iowa. Photography by Alexis Beucler.
I began incorporating shimmery fabrics and sparkly beads throughout undergrad and during my time spent working under the Windgate Fellowship, but rhinestone-bedazzled ceramic was a new addition to my work in graduate school. I loved being able to use ceramics to create a rigid structure that the softer, fabric-based elements of my work could play off. My ceramic components, though thick and heavy, are still fragile. The material lends itself to the delicacy of jewelry, regardless of how large the resulting sculpture is. I keep my ceramic components small and compact enough to be portable—I can dot them with rhinestones at a table in a cafe or even travel with them on a plane safely if they’re covered in enough bubble wrap.
As for a favorite material, I think it’s impossible I’ll ever really get sick of rhinestones. I love how they can transform a surface, smoothing out the imperfections (which I see as a metaphor for how filters and screens alter our online appearance) by distracting from what is below. I use rhinestones so much that at this point in my life, they’ll just randomly fall off my body or from my clothing, leaving a trail of sparkles in my wake (and, unfortunately for them, in my friends’ homes.)
Installation shot of Cosmetic Justice at NIACC in Mason City, Iowa. Photography by Alexis Beucler.
FH: The dramatic, oversized scale of your work is so fun—I’m curious if you would ever consider making wearable works? Why or why not? AH: A few times, I actually have produced works which are wearable, though they are clothing-adjacent pieces used in a performative context: they are flowing, cumbersome garments with hand-sewn tendrils and long sleeves draping from them. Such garments, however, are not practical for day-to-day wear! I have actually been thinking about making smaller maquettes of my work with porcelain and the tiniest rhinestones. I’ve had sketches for what seems like ages on them, but have not yet gotten around to creating them. I can also envision these smaller pieces being thorough sketches for larger projects that need an abundance of planning. I’m interested in being able to move through ideas a bit faster by shrinking the scale. I would not, however, see them as my actual studio work since they wouldn’t hold space in the same way, which is one thing holding me back from producing them.
Regardless, since my work already holds such an obvious relationship to the body, smaller pieces make sense in that regard. To literally put them on a person’s body would be a more direct and accessible version of that relationship, albeit much smaller. I think another roadblock I have is constructing every part of the jewelry. For example, I don’t just want to create a bedazzled pendant and stick it on a leather rope and call it a necklace; I would need to be thoughtful in how I approach making the necklace strand integrate with the rest of the jewelry.
Installation shot of Cosmetic Justice at NIACC in Mason City, Iowa. Photography by Alexis Beucler.
FH: What feelings/thoughts do you hope to evoke in the viewer with your work? AH: Some viewers feel uncomfortable when first looking at my work—mostly in that they are trying to figure out what these objects are. Some people immediately jump to, “Earrings, jewelry!” while others cock their heads and think, “Nipple tassels? A chain that is somehow sexy?” The general forms of my work feel familiar, sensual, and bodily, but once engulfed in shiny fabrics and glittering rhinestones, tread the line of being giant jewelry pieces. I hope this relationship between the sensuality of forms and playfulness of materials brings to light the effect that adornment can have on a body. Since my pieces act as stand-ins for a person, I want viewers to think about how a body can change based on how it is adorned.
One thing I have been thinking about in regards to all this is the history and timeline of the high heel. The first high heel recorded was a product of war made for Persian soldiers (in what is now Iran) as far back as the 10th century. Men would wear them to retain a stable position in their stirrups on horseback during war, specifically when they stood up to fire a bow. Centuries later in France, King Louis XIV was documented as wearing a colorful variety of heels, as seen in painted portraits of him. He also encouraged noblemen in his court to wear them. For him, the higher the heel, the more powerful the wearer. As soon as the 18th century rolled around, men and women were both wearing iterations of the high heels we think of today with a block near the wearer’s heel. Naturally, men wanted to seperate themselves from what women wore, and there was a divide in heels for each gender: women’s heels were narrower and more decorative, and men’s more utilitarian. Eventually, society deemed heels as purely decorative and solely reserved for women. Of course, now we see contemporary examples of men wearing heels: David Bowie, for instance, broke a lot of boundaries in gendered fashion.
There is much more to the trajectory of high heels than what is described above, but it is so intriguing to me how social hierarchies, gender constructs, and adornment altered this one object in the eyes of many. My work feels like a similar conversation to how a wearer can alter the context of something being worn. Instead, how can a material’s context change based on the body it inhabits?
If You Tease, 2021. Ceramic, rhinestones, acrylic, cotton piping, and latex.
FH: Do you have any new jewelry sculptures in the works that you’re particularly excited about? AH: I recently acquired a grant from the Iowa Arts Council that allowed me to indulge in materials I normally wouldn’t even dare to glance at. One of these materials is a few yards of powder blue liquid latex fabric. I typically work with a color palette imbued with pinks, reds, and purples, as they feel more bodily to me, so powder blue will be a new color for a new series! I’m working on a variation of a pair of nipple tassels with some chains dangling from them that will be wrapped in this blue latex and then tangled into a huge knot. I’m trying to incorporate some new moves in my pieces to disrupt the symmetry of my work.
Detail of If You Tease, 2021. Ceramic, rhinestones, acrylic, cotton piping, and latex.
FH: What is your own relationship to jewelry? Your work, of course, is pretty maximal—is that indicative of your personal style as well, or is it specific to your work? AH: My day-to-day style is not minimalistic in the least! The jewelry I wear is gold and glitzy, and I do my best to blend atypical pieces with more classic ones into my wardrobe. I shoot for wearing heirloom and vintage pieces, or jewelry which is crafted from more sustainable materials. Most of the vintage jewelry I purchase is sourced from eBay or Etsy, and I can spend tons of time scouring those websites for quirky but timeless looking pieces. My jewelry has dangles, chains, tassels, gemstones, and hoops that function like tiny door knockers—very reminiscent of the work I make. Though my jewelry choices ten years ago were less conscious of my work, now I find myself choosing jewelry which echoes forms I use.
Tether and Lead in Cosmetic Justice. Photography by Alexis Beucler.
FH: What does The Power of Jewelry mean to you? AH: I have heirloom jewelry passed down to me from my mother’s and father’s side. Even when I thought a certain piece of jewelry wasn’t my “style,” it became part of it since it was the style of my mother, my grandmother, and so on. It adapted into my style while still retaining the unique histories of the previous wearers, just as my family history plays a role in the genetics that give me my appearance and personality.
To know that I have an ivory ring, pin, and necklace set that my great grandmother wore is not only indicative of old jewelry’s durability, but it connects me to anyone who has held this piece of jewelry in their collection for such a long period of time. Clothing can be a bit more difficult to pass down as everyone is a different size and shape, and clothing cannot always be as sturdy as the metals of jewelry. Jewelry, however, is always the perfect fit. A necklace will fit every wearer. A ring can fit on any finger, and even if it can’t, it can be strung on a gold chain like a bead. Earrings, both clip-on and pierced, are one-size fits all. Jewelry has lasted for centuries and will continue to do so! It traces the generations of a family tree and garners meaning as it traverses time.
The Power of Jewelry is the compelling force that radiates from a piece. It manifests itself visually in that it doesn’t need a tag or sign that tells you its creator, origins, and meanings. I aim to create power in my work by giving it the ability to hold its own space; my pieces do not need to be worn on a body to hold meaning. Rather, they project power through their size and the abundance and repetition of materials I use on them, materials which are viewed as typically being meant for women’s adornment. By doing so, I create sculptures that are empowering, self-aware, and unabashedly feminine. For me, this is The Power of Jewelry.
FH: Finally, how can our readers best support your work? AH: You can follow me on Instagram @alihval and share anything you like with a friend or colleague! For anyone out there who works in an art department and needs an exhibition full of sparkling gems or a guest lecturer, I’m your lady!
Installation shot of Cosmetic Justice at NIACC in Mason City, Iowa. Photography by Alexis Beucler.
Cosmetic Justice is on view until October 15th at North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City, Iowa. See more of Ali Hval’s work on her website, alihval.com, and follow her on Instagram at @alihval.
Special thanks to Ali Hval for taking the time to share her work and insight into her process with us. Artist statement and interview responses written by Ali Hval; interview conducted and edited by Jackie Andrews. Exhibition images by Alexis Beucler; images provided by Ali Hval.
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