Anne Maa of Anne Maa Designs recently emailed me about her new Metal collection. This collection is really unique as it’s more organic than you may be used to seeing when it comes to metal jewelry. Obviously, if you prefer more traditional jewelry, then this might not be your cup of tea, but I found a number of pieces in this collection that I feel could be worn without feeling too over the edge. I especially liked some of her pieces, like this cuff bracelet, that have holes in them. She calls this a “sterling crater cuff,” and it does remind me of some huge crater from the moon. The antique Japanese ribbon doesn’t hurt either because I love the idea of mixing fibers with metals.
In these earrings from the same collection, the drop pieces are cast, and then they are connected with wire wraps to the apatite beads, which seems to be a stone I’m seeing more and more of lately. I’m guessing, since these are cast, she must have formed the drops originally from wax, and then use a lost wax casting technique to burn it out and form these, which explains why she says you’ll see the occasional finger print in them.
That actually sounds like fun to me, forming the wax with your hands and getting all gooey.
Anyway, check out the whole collection yourself, and tell me what you think. I think that even if you may not be the type that normally appreciates an organic jewelry design, you will at the very least appreciate (as I do) the fact that this jewelry designer has a unique point of view, which is not an easy thing to do these days when so many of us are making jewelry.