Book Review: 500 Silver Jewelry Designs

To start with....this is a gorgeous book...just like all the 500's.  My only disappointment is that there are no pieces made with metal clay....at least none that could be readily identified as such...which is a shame because there are many metal clay artists that I think belong in a book like this.  But this is a collection of "top studio artists" and it has a decidely modern art flavor to it. 

The pieces run the spectrum from very wearable to those that I couldn't figure out what they were let alone how you would wear it....the  '"l'art pour l'art'' pieces....like a silver spinal cord, a ring that takes two hands to wear, a silver wire mohawk.  

Like modern art, there are pieces that I really like and others that make me sit and scratch my head.  But I find it's the head-scratchers that I keep coming back to...the ones that challenge my views on what makes something a piece of art and what makes it a piece of jewelry.  I like having this book in my library for that reason alone.
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