I have had a pretty great summer. It has been a nice mix of conferences, road trips, studio time and writing. Now I need to get this blog caught up a bit!
I was honored to be invited to participate it the Missing Twin exhibition at the Society of North American Goldsmith’s Conference in San Diego. This was caringly curated by Erica Meier. The premise was to use an earring that had lost its match as a starting point. The created “twin” could replicate or riff off the original.
When I began to look around for lonely earrings, my mother was my initial port of call.
She told me she still had one half of her first pair of pierced earrings.
Eleanor “Eli” Lopez had her ears pierced by her best friend and roommate, Sue Larsen.
This took place in 1967, during their senior year of college at the University of Minnesota.
Pierced ears were becoming popular so Eli pierced Sue’s ears and then Sue returned the favor.
They used ice to numb the area and then pressed a needle through the lobe and into a potato that was providing support.
My mom sent me a picture of the earring before sending it to me. It was a simple gold ball on a post. Unfortunately, the postal service somewhat crushed the padded envelope and the earring arrived wrinkled. I decided to persevere with my original plan for the project. After all, who doesn’t get a little crushed and wrinkled over time?
The earring was digitally modeled as a replica of the original but with a needle in place of the post. This was then printed and cast in 14K gold. For an end cap, I made a 3d scan of half a potato, which I then hollowed out digitally and had cast in bronze. To make the half-potato receptive to the needle, I filled it with silicone.
Digital rendering of replacement earring
Scanned potato half
Gold needle replacement earring with bronze potato ear nut (above). Inspirational source earring below.