Felieke van der Leest spoke to a full room of SOFA 2004 attendees in Chicago about her whimsical work and the inspiration for it. There is so much more to her work than meets the eye.”Actually the pieces I make are very simple,” says Van der Leest. “You can immediately identify with them. I consciously choose to design jewelery that you don’t need a degree in art history to understand. For many people, artists are from another planet. I don’t come from an artistic family which explains, I think, my need to make accessible jewelery.”

Van der Leest gets her ideas from every day experiences. The only criteria are that the design inspires the same kind of humor. “I make a sketch of every idea and if after looking at it twice it isn’t funny anymore, I throw it away.” In order to keep having ideas, it’s important to have a playful approach. For example she knits all her gifts.

Symbolism and memories are often what jewelery is about. And yet the symbolism Van der Leest uses is of a completely different kind. Her designs do not appeal to nostalgia or sentiment, they are about the comic lightness of being. Just the way they are made is funny already. Van der Leest doesn’t weld her work but knits and crochets it. She has a very elegant technique using the thinnest of threads and executing each piece perfectly. This makes them wonderful to look at while at the same time, because of the subject matter — frog legs as a brooch or a pink piglet’s behind for a pendant — hilariously funny.

Vera Siemund’s work invites us to ponder a provocatively beautiful paradox — a precious balance between the historic continuum of the decorative arts and radically fresh ideas made manifest in expertly crafted jewelry.Siemund is a young avant-garde German artist who contemporizes classic forms and reminds us of the elegance of things past. Historic ornaments and classical references have long been the focus of her interest. She is interested in their associative power, and holds a deep appreciation for the richness, detail, beauty and workmanship of old jewelry. Yet she is quick to comment that “these do not belong to the world today. I often work with quotations from the 18/19th century. I pick out pieces which are already eclectic themselves…with roots in history and connections to the present.”

Recently Siemund was the featured artist in Metalsmith magazine where, noted art historian, Toni Greenbaum, commented, “Her work is exquisite, yet it exceeds mere surface appeal by also eloquently commenting on the past by juxtaposing selected motifs from classical antiquity, architecture, textiles, costume and botanical gardens.” The Art Jewelry Forum agrees and was honored to sponsor her presentation at SOFA NYC, 2004. Her work can be seen at Jeweler’s Werk Galerie, Washington DC and Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Contributed by AJF member Sally von Bargen