Chained Accumulus Necklace

Artist Sergey Jivetin works in multiple arenas, jewelry being one of them. Chained Accumulus Necklace, a delicately rendered cloud form, is a piece composed of hair and jewelry chain from his "Accumulus" series. Jivetin's diverse body of work is created from unconventional materials and explores themes of the body, science, and time.

  Chained Accumulus Necklace 2009 Hair, Jewelry Chain.

"I strive to create representations of paradoxical concepts like the sometimes sterile, cold interactions between humans in office environments," he explains to one blogger. "By choosing jewelry's small scale and proximity to the body, I want the wearer to experience a concept in tangible, three-dimensional forms"1
"I am interested in opening new ways of obtaining levels of interaction between beauty, physicality, and knowledge."2

Drawing from studies in engineering, fashion jewelry, illustration, and product design, this SUNY New Paltz and New Parsons School of Design graduate has created innovative items fashioned from watch hands, human hair, fishing hooks, egg shells, wish bones, jewelry saw blades, hypodermic tubing, and syringe needles.

Opti Accumulus Necklace 2009 Glasses frames, False eyelashes.

Sergey Jivetin is currently exhibiting in two NYC shows.

Hydrologic ~ April 20-May 20, 2013
    NYU Langone Medical Center.
    MSB Gallery 550 First Ave. New York City

Out of this world. Jewelry in the Space Age ~ March 17-September 7, 2013
    Forbes Magazine Galleries.
    60 Fifth Ave. New York City

1. Splendor: A Celebration of Jewelry Designers, February 12, 2010
2. Marthe Le Van, 1000 Rings: Inspiring Adornments for the Hand. Lark Books, New York/ London, 2004: 220

Movember Moustaches

There is something distinctly whimsical about Movember, the month of the moustache. Started in 2003, Movember is a charitable campaign that highlights, and raises money for, men’s health issues by asking men to grown moustaches for the month. Here are a few ways that folks are bringing a smile to my day:

1. Lost in E Minor's "Airplanes with Moustaches" post

 2. Victoria and Albert Museum's moustache broach to bring out your inner modern day dandy.

3. The Moustache Calendar began in 2004 as a crazy idea dreamt up by two college roommates who needed to raise money for airfare to Hawaii. Matthew Cavallaro, a collaborator on this year's calendar entitled "The Very Best," says, "Throughout history, the moustache has been a symbol of empowerment for men. We wanted to celebrate the legacy of the moustache in design, fashion, and adventure. The calendar walks a thin line between pop art and fine art. We're making some bold statements about how relevant we believe it should be in popular culture, while obviously being a bit tongue-in- cheek."

4. Asos is offering a wide selection of moustache-related items, including a pack of 3 enamel charm rings, a moustache knitted beanie by River Island, and a moustache clutch by Koku.

5. The Moustache Bow Tie Project is a Kick Starter campaign brought to you by Knot Theory, the creator's of last year's successful Kick Starter project The Moustache Tie Clip Project. Knot Theory is a fashion label based out of Vancouver, Canada.

6. The third annual Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships took place on Sunday, November 11, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's hard to imagine a more important event for American enthusiasts of facial hair. Growers were judged in eighteen categories, including the Dali,
Imperial, Hungarian, and the Musketeer.

7. The Manly 'Stache. This is now a couple of years old, but it's hard to resist a blog post marveling over the most manly of mustaches....

Happy Movember!!!

Event: Erotic Death in Victorian Art and Fashion

Victorian hair plume palette work brooch with seed pearls and curled wire work, circa 1870. Found on the Morning Glory Antiques website. 

On Friday, September 30 at 8pm, the Observatory in New York presents Erotic Death in Victorian Art and Fashion, an illustrated lecture with Professor Deborah Lutz.

The Victorians had a different relationship to the dead body and dying than we do today. Painters in the late-Romantic style created beautiful men and women ravaged by death; they depicted dying as a moment of climax and aesthetic perfection. Locks of hair were snipped from the corpse and woven into jewelry: a form of mourning that revered the body and its parts, even after death. Body-part stories told of the deep desire to possess the pieces of the famous dead. We will look at some of these paintings and objects, with a view toward recuperating this willingness to dwell with loss itself, to linger over the evidence of death’s presence woven into the texture of life. This lecture is present by Morbid Anatomy

Deborah Lutz is an Associate Professor at Long Island University, C.W. Post. Her first book—The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative—traces a literary history of the erotic outcast. Her second book—Pleasure Bound: Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism—explores mid-Victorian sexual rebellion. She is currently working on a book about the materialism of Victorian death culture and “secular relics”: little things treasured because they belonged to the dead.

Ring Around the Collar

Middlesex University student Kerry Howley (BA Jewellry) received the 2011 Arthur Silver Award from The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture for a series of necklaces she crafted from human hair using broken saw blades. These delicate pieces emulate lace, with their symmetrical, open-work design. But it was not lace that inspired Kerry, rather it was damask wallpaper patterns from MoDA’s collections.

Since hair no longer on the head is not always pretty, Kerry explains:

“My concept is a material exploration of aversion and attraction and how we can feel these seemingly opposing emotional responses simultaneously. The necklaces are made of human hair, a material we are familiar with and take pride in. However once off of the body it becomes an innate source of aversion. I wanted to see if I could make discarded hair attractive again”

The winner of the annual Arthur Silver Award receives £1000.

Melanie Bilenker

"Clean clothes" - Locket - Gold, ebony, resin, pigment, hair - 2007

Melanie Bilenker's jewelry is a series of intimate acts. It is not simply the domestic imagery on her lockets, pendants, and rings - scenes of her sleeping, eating, getting dressed (and undressed) - but Melanie then re-creates these images out of single strands of her own hair. 'nuff said.

"Nap" - Brooch - Gold, ebony, resin, pigment, hair - 2008

Mourning Jewelry - Anna Schwamborn

Watch chain tear catcher.

Mourning jewelry is one of the oldest and most familiar forms of hair art. In this contemporary iteration, design student Anna Schwamborn, uses human hair and human ashes mixed with black bone china to execute her designs. Anna points out that, "Human remains act as an important medium of remembering a passed away loved one and are some of the longest lasting and most individual natural materials."

Rosary and necklace.

At once ethereal and corporeal, these materials are not only aspects of the deceased, the physical corpse, but also honor the spirit of a passed loved one. Similar to Victorian mourning jewelry, Anna's pieces "are supposed to be worn close to the body of the mourner symbolizing a lasting physical connection between two individuals even after death. Furthermore this collection is supposed to remind the wearer on the fragility and appreciation of life and most importantly, acting as a keepsake."

The 2009 series, called Mourning Objects, comprises a rosary, a necklace, and a watch chain tear catcher. Schwamborn has worked for Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood and has studied at Central St Martins in London.