Margareta Niel

For Austrian jeweler Margareta Niel, jewelry is an object that when worn becomes an everyday companion, a “toy for the soul.” Niel is particularly drawn to the white color of silver; she is intrigued by the special character and emotional symbolism of this material, and she appreciates its physical and symbolic lightness and delicacy. When creating her jewels, Niel forms hollow bodies that are not entirely closed, and sometimes transparent objects. She focuses on texture, incorporating different nuances of light and shade, matte and shiny surfaces, and delicate engravings that are barely perceptible to the viewer. Her curving lines are soft and dynamic and appear spontaneous; she is drawn to the graphic gesture of simple drawings and especially handwriting, though the words she uses are abstractions meant to guide viewers their own experience. 

Danielle Gori-Montanelli

Designer Danielle Gori-Montanelli was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College before moving to New York City to launch her career as a painter. A successful metalsmith, Gori-Montanelli “painted” her works with a handsaw, hammer, and blowtorch. However, she soon found herself making a living as a jeweler, and after having two children began to seek alternatives to the hazardous materials and methods involved in metalwork. That’s when she discovered felt. Imagining the tactile possibilities of a work is now as important a part of Gori-Montanelli’s creative process as envisioning what it will look like; her pieces evolve organically as she plays with the colors and forms of her accumulating layers. Gori-Montanelli and her family currently live in Middlebury, Vermont.

Christophe Tissot

Like Alexander Calder and Claude Lalanne, Christophe Tissot is among that handful of artists for whom making jewelry goes hand-in-hand with their principal body of work. Tissot began his painting practice in Florence in 1985, with oil paint and India ink among his preferred media. His works are characterized by large visionary and poetic formats, yet while he is familiar with the monumental, his jewels demonstrate that he is also at ease with micro-spaces. Tissot’s artist’s jewelry is fuelled by the content of his pictorial oeuvre, expressing the lines of tension, scrolls, and engravings which inform his canvases and his large India ink works. From this emerges a world of highly architectural forms, suggesting the oeuvre of a sculptor because, in the artist’s mind, most of these cuffs represent forms powerful enough to fill larger spaces.

Begoña Rentero

Cécile Bertrand

Born in Paris and based in Brussels, Cécile Bertrand has been creating textile jewelry since 2005. Bertrand was originally an accessories designer, and her collection of fabrics, especially silks, was her initial source of inspiration. These fabrics invited experimentation with contrasting patterns: flowers against stripes, polka dots with Italian landscapes. A self-taught jeweler, Bertrand designs through making, and the challenges she encounters along the way often lead her to new directions and unexpected outcomes. Some of her recent work makes use of touristic scarves featuring figurative scenes—she enjoys mixing these kitsch designs with different geometrically printed silks. Each of her printed “pastilles” necklaces is made in limited edition, and she also designs a “basic” collection of colorful satin necklaces made of rolled-up fabric beads. She is currently working with paper, recycling books and old maps to create one-of-a-kind pieces.

Janka Juhos

Milena Zu

Arek Wolski

David and Roberta Williamson 

Jo Hayes Ward

Eliana Venier

Eliana Venier studied advertising and fashion marketing before she discovered her calling as a jeweler. She created her brand, Alienina, in 2008. The name emphasizes Venier’s point of view: alien to the traditional fashion system. This handmade collection, created from poor and discarded materials, aims to extend the lifespan of everyday objects and grant them a new use and aesthetic value. Venier creates these jewels using such diverse materials as sailing and mountain-climbing cords, wicks for oil lamps, resin commonly used in car parts, and fabric and straps used for blinds. Eighty percent of the materials are production waste, washable and non-toxic. Her inspiration comes from both architecture and the natural environment: Alienina jewellery is wearable architecture with an organic touch. With Alienina, Venier hopes to inspire people to discover that objects can experience a new life with new functions.

Violaine Ulmer

For Parisian jeweler Violaine Ulmer, the conception of a new piece of jewelry involves consideration of the interactions of light, transparency, form, and space to create a plastic object, not just an item of adornment. Each piece is above all a sculpture and a further source of experimentation. This approach gives form to “objewels” (objects-sculptures-jewelry), work that can be placed at the intersection of art, fashion, and design. Her current explorations focus on the meeting point between specific porcelain techniques and classic jewelry-making processes. Through this research, Ulmer evolves forms that exploit the fundamental character of her materials; they are both generous and pared to the essence.

Camilla Teglio

The main theme of Camilla Teglio’s work is decoration. Her pieces include an array of textures and patterns, created using a variety of techniques and materials. In her Blue collection, Teglio combines layers of colors, paper, and patterns, melted together until they become something new. She has a particular passion for the typical motifs of Japanese paper: repetitive, blue in color, and sometimes hypnotic. She believes that wood is the perfect link between the paper and the body, and imagines her works as contemporary Ukiyo-e, the ancient printing method created during the Edo period in Japan that uses carved pieces of wood. Ukiyo-e means “pictures of the floating world:” Teglio’s “floating world” is one of signs, patterns, and drawings, floating on small pieces of wood painted in blue. Teglio studied at Alchimia school of contemporary jewelry in Florence before moving to Genoa, where she has her own studio.

Eva Steinberg

Jeweler Eva Steinberg creates new jewelry using old elements. As she fashions each piece, she brings together traditional techniques, vintage ornaments, and used materials in a new order and combination; she finds that the ultimate challenge is transferring the forms and colors of nature into her works. Steinberg is greatly inspired by her travels and explorations of foreign cultures, and her most recent collection is a portrait of all the experiences that she has gathered over the past 22 years with that fascinating material, gold. She is particularly intrigued by opal-enamel, because it demands precise performance. Steinberg aims for clarity, effortlessness, playfulness, harmony of form and color, and harmony in the shimmering of the enamel combined with gold. She believes that with jewelry, we can bring to light the beauty concealed within.

Simonetta Starrabba

Rome-based designer Simonetta Starrabba began making jewelry in 1988, when she opened an old tin box of vintage buttons. This occurrence sparked an abiding passion for these wonderful little objects, and inspired her to use her newfound artistic skills to create button jewels. Since then, Starrabba has been on the hunt for vintage buttons, with a special preference for specimens from the 1920s to 1940s because they are always unique and full of smart details. These buttons are often made from Bakelite, casein, celluloid, all kinds of plastics, glass, bone, wood, or crystal. Starrabba seeks harmony between forms and tones in her designs, and the resulting pieces are charming and marvelous, but also serious and intriguing. Her jewelry, including bracelets, brooches, earrings, rings, and cufflinks, is all one-of-a-kind.