Here at AJF we have a secret love of diamonds. While reading Vanity Fair in public we are always very vocal in our condemnation of the precious materials and conventional jewelry that fill the pages at the front of the magazine, and yet we guiltily confess to gazing long and lovingly at those same pages when we’re alone. When we found ourselves hiding pictures of diamonds in the pages of Metalsmith magazine so we would be able to get a quick fix at contemporary jewelry openings and conferences, we knew something had to change. While we could try and give up our addiction to all that glitters and shimmers, we felt that a more interesting strategy would be to confess our diamond mania and try and entice others who also love the stone of champions to reveal themselves.

The response to our ‘Facet? Let’s Face It!’ appeal has been excellent, with many AJF members coming forward in what we are calling our season of Blame It On The Bling. The first sorry but sparkly jewelry-loving and diamond-wearing individual to share their shame is AJF board member Ron Porter. Here are some diamonds he just can’t stop thinking about.

Keith Lewis, Salt Lick, 1996, sterling silver, vermeil, diamonds, 4 x 2.25 x .5 inches

Even though Salt Lick is taken out of context from Keith Lewis’s early body of work, it expresses his desire to question the preciousness of jewelry. This body of work dealt with his experiences as a gay man, particularly how HIV came to effect the open sexuality of the gay movement of the last quarter of the twentieth century. He used animal imagery in the majority of these pieces.

Salt Lick was completed after his pieces dealing with HIV and began to present the re-awakening of sexuality in the gay community in the late 1990s. The figure is lone and experiencing sexual pleasure without a partner. It is also significant that the figure was a gilded stag, suggesting a return to Pre-AIDS gay iconography.

This is the only piece in which Keith used diamonds. Their particular use in this setting questions all sorts of significance and lore attributed to the stone as well as enters into the devine/profane debate regarding the function of contemporary jewelry.