The Goddess Collection: Wire Wrap Wearable Art

I have long had a fascination with world religion and mythology, so much that it was a major of mine in those long-ago college days, amidst hurried term papers and (gulp) group discussion on the complete works of Chaucer (read in Middle English, no less).

And those were good times, discussing all the theisms... diving eagerly into the mythos of cultures, societies and religious proclivities and discovering the magic of each. 

Even in my youth, I surrounded myself with literature on Greek and Roman mythology, which I inhaled with (what I've been told by my mother) was a need unnatural for most 12 year-olds. The personification of an otherwise untouchable and unknowable divine presence was an exercise, for me, in creative reasoning. And the desire to understand the intangible has carried me through the years and manifested itself in my art... whatever incarnation that art has taken.

And when that art turned to wire wrapping, it was no surprise to me the stories I began to tell.

The Goddess Collection was born from my love of ancient pantheistic practice. It is my attempt at personifying, in wire, the essence of the divine presence, and capturing the magical stories of cultures the world over, sometimes seemingly long forgotten or ignored.

The pieces in this collection all utilize multiple stones, gathered together in a bezel of wire that is sometimes chaotic but always organic. Once I've chosen an ancient archetypal story to tell, I sit with the stones and the wire and allow the characters to manifest in my thoughts before taking to task the tools at hand.

I suppose it's a rather abstract representation of Gaia, for instance, to see a collection of Imperial Jasper and carnelian stones huddled together in a nest of curling copper. And her story may not be immediately clear to the casual observer. But I come to know her, or what her story represents, while I sit with the wire and allow it to move and dictate to me the direction it takes. Though I've been told or have read her tale many times over the years, each piece that I make in my effort to express her story in art is always unique, always showcasing an emotional connection that I've made to the Gaia in me, for lack of a simpler explanation.

I imagine this collection will be a long-standing one for my work. The opportunity to tell these ancient stories, however limited by my skills and technical knowledge, is one more step towards embracing the goddess within.