Bare Bones Beauty: Transforming Objects from Nature into Wearable Art
As a girl growing up in the woods of western Pennsylvania, jewelry artist Luci Jockel MFA 16 JM began collecting found objects from nature: feathers, stones, bark and bones from deer and mice. “My parents are antiques dealers, so there was a constant flow of objects passing through the house,” she recalls. “I think I started collecting as a way of picking my own things to keep.”
As an undergraduate at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Jockel began transforming such objects into wearable art—focusing at first on mushrooms and other fungi. “I was initially nervous about working with bones,” she explains. “I didn’t want the work to be off-putting.”
Inspired by the jewelry of Swedish artist Märta Mattsson, who uses the process of electroforming to coat insects with copper, Jockel applied to RISD’s Jewelry + Metalsmithing program, which Mattsson had attended as an exchange student. “Once I got to RISD, I just dove in,” Jockel recalls. “The grad program is a great opportunity to explore concepts and to think about your process as an artist.”
Pictured above is Luci Jockel (striped shirt) working with a RISD student. Photo by Jo Sittenfeld MFA 08 PH
