Since September, I've been enrolled in a jewelry design and goldsmithing course in Florence. During this period of suspended classes, we were asked to make two objects a day using whatever materials we could find at home. The pieces had to draw partly from an artist we'd chosen as inspiration for a jewelry collection, and partly express the emotions we're living through in this particular moment—seeking a synthesis of both.
I'll tell you about the objects I've made for school and the jewelry collection that will come from them at year's end (if you'd like!). But here I want to share some ideas so you can have as much fun as I have.
First, I started seeing everything that passed through my hands as potential raw material. I began collecting cork stoppers, plastic caps, egg cartons, chocolate boxes, foil wrappers from Perugina kisses, newspapers, and scraps of fabric left over from making masks. I discovered that with almost nothing—things normally thrown away—you can create beautiful objects.
Take a prosecco cork, a knife, a chocolate bar's cardboard sleeve, and glue: you've got a little puppet to dress in a skirt made from Perugina foil, or to give a fabric camellia to hold, or to tuck under a heavy book for a nap. Let your imagination run wild. Build a house for your puppet. Make furniture from egg cartons—tables, beds, wardrobes—or dress up colored cardboard boxes with newspaper. You could even create a mirror using aluminum foil.
With cardboard, you can make stunning three-dimensional greeting cards by gluing cork or plastic stoppers to form flowers, or writing someone's name in cork, fabric, or cardboard. You could even make sound cards by placing stoppers inside a plastic container glued to the cardboard. A card like that brings joy to whoever makes it and whoever receives it.
So I urge you: look at the potential in every object. Think of all the ways you could use it and transform it. I'm certain you'll have tremendous fun discovering the artist inside you.
