ABOUT ME
My name is Jay Van Cudd and Iv'e been a woodworker, furniture designer/builder for about 34 years. I also specialize in period antique conservation and restoration. I have consulted and worked with interior designers, antique dealers, curators of museums and my own personal clients over the years and I have absolutely loved the work that I do for them. About three years ago I made two custom end tables for a client out of wood and resin. It was getting close to Christmas and had an idea to make a couple of earrings and pendants out of the cut-offs from theses tables . Since then, my interest in design with other materials has lead me to working in stone, precious and semi precious metals, resins along with incorporating wood to these materials.
AMERICAN MODERNIST JEWELRY HISTORY
When Greenwich village was the center of bohemian life in New York City and a hotbed for modernist painting ,sculpture,
literature , and music, modernist jewelry flourished there as well. In fact, modernist jewelry became the most visible expression of the village art scene. The reasons for such a jewelry expression in the village was to provide relatively inexpensive handmade pieces for a sociopolitically progressive and artistically astute sub-culture as part of a general craft revival that rejected the standardization and the industrialization of the post WWII era. The influences came from sculpture and painting rather than other forms of jewelry. Often these early practitioners were primarily self taught , eschewed traditional materials such as gold, platinum, and precious stones - diamonds ,rubies, and emeralds , in favor of lesser materials like copper, brass aluminum, silver, glass and hard stones- quartz, opal ,and agates. They championed the handmade and reveled in the spontaneous effects of the process.
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