{"id":9569,"date":"2015-01-30T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T18:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daveonline.net\/thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/?p=9569"},"modified":"2015-02-04T14:53:09","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T21:53:09","slug":"outside-inspiration-where-we-find-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/outside-inspiration-where-we-find-ourselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside Inspiration: Where We Find Ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"laminated_07\"<\/a>Conceptual work in contemporary jewelry is no rare thing. What is a tad rare, in my opinion, is conceptual jewelry that is wearable (how else can you really fully share it if you can’t wear it out?) and accessible. And by “accessible,” I mean a creation that most people can appreciate because it speaks to and pulls at the one thing we all share — the experience of being human.<\/p>\n

I actually love conceptual jewelry, the kind that makes you stop and think, but to share something that this community will find inspiration in kept me focused on finding something that we can all smile at or find something to admire. Our experiences and wanting to hang onto memories of the times and places we’ve experienced is pretty ubiquitous, don’t you think? Tzu-Ju Chen<\/a>\u00a0seems to be speaking to that aspect of our human side with this ring. It does push the “wearable” boundary with its size, but\u00a0I love the nostalgic sense he’s captured with the little cropped photos.\u00a0Chartres Cathedral,<\/em> as it is named, shows off photos of the building from\u00a0a variety of angles on angled little boards accented with semi-precious gems. Tzu-Ju actually sees this work from a slightly different perspective, saying, “My works explores the conceptual play of material and meaning. Travel photography and\u00a0vintage snapshots serve as mementos that embody the present reality.”<\/p>\n

Maybe I am tired, but I’m not sure about the “present reality” embodiment here. Nonetheless, I think I could spend a lot of time staring at my hand and checking out the little photos. Especially if they were photos from a trip of my own. It’s kind of a neat idea to consider how we might integrate our own memories into our work in such a literal fashion.<\/p>\n

Tzu-Ju’s work certainly does explore the play of material and meaning and in a wide range of approaches and materials. Tzu-Ju’s\u00a0website<\/a> is a beautiful, quiet gallery of her\u00a0work and concepts that should make a perfect quiet break for you today.<\/p>\n

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If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or an issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"businesscard-3.5inx2in-h-front\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"PolymerArts<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conceptual work in contemporary jewelry is no rare thing. What is a tad rare, in my opinion, is conceptual jewelry that is wearable (how else can you really fully share it if you can’t wear it out?) and accessible. And by “accessible,” I mean a creation that most people can appreciate because it speaks to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3804,3822,3798,1693,3820,3821,166,3823,1073,294,2946,2963,3819],"class_list":["post-9569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational-art","tag-conceptual-art","tag-conceptual-jewelry","tag-conceptual-work","tag-contemporary-art","tag-deconstructing-memory","tag-deconstructing-time","tag-jewelry","tag-laminated-photo","tag-memory","tag-mixed-media","tag-mixed-media-materials","tag-outside-inspiration","tag-tzu-ju-chen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0Lm-2ul","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}