Whenever I travel for a jewelry show, I try to carve out time to explore. Museums, galleries, shops, architecture, even window displays all have a way of finding their way back into my work eventually.
This trip to New York for Melee was no exception.
I arrived with a long list of places I wanted to see and gave myself the day before the show to take in as much as possible. Somehow, I managed to visit five museums in one day, along with a few other stops on my ever-growing New York inspiration list.
A Favorite Stop: MAD
One place I return to whenever I can is the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). There are always several great exhibitions happening at once, and I especially love that jewelry and contemporary craft are such an important part of the museum.
This visit, the installation that captured my attention most was Jessica Lichtenstein's.
Walking into the exhibition felt like stepping into an entirely different world. It was colorful, immersive, playful and almost overwhelming at first. There was so much to look at that I kept finding myself moving closer, then closer again.
What really pulled me in were the lockets.
I'm naturally drawn to jewelry that carries meaning, so I loved discovering the messages tucked inside them. Each one felt like a tiny object holding a much larger idea. The more I looked, the more I wanted to keep reading and discovering what was hidden within each piece.
Jewelry has always been more than decoration. It can hold a story, mark a place or time, carry a secret, or become a tiny personal talisman. Sometimes the most interesting part isn't immediately visible.
There was also something about the color, movement and luminosity of the installation that reminded me of one of the new designs I was about to debut at Melee: my Intarsia Gold Spinner Earrings.
The earrings are designed to move, with hand-cut intarsia and mother of pearl catching the light as they spin. The shifting color and luminescence reveal something different from every angle. Seeing Lichtenstein's work made me think about that same sense of discovery, how movement can change what we see and invite us to look a little closer.
It was an unexpected connection, and a fitting bit of inspiration to carry with me into Melee the next day.
See What's New
Curious to see what I brought to New York? Explore my newest one-of-a-kind designs, released earlier this month at Melee New York.