Lorena Angulo: brooch

Showing posts with label brooch. Show all posts

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Louise's Calavera (brooch/pendant)

I have always design pieces inspired in my Mexican culture and almost always they reflect an experience in my life. This new piece was made honoring a wonderful person who I lost this month; I never imagined how hard this news will be for me. Louise was an amazing and talented jeweler but most of all she was a very kind and dear lady. I met her almost 8 years ago in the school of art here in San Antonio, her jewelry was so beautiful.
Every minute I spent with her was valuable for me, I respected her a lot and all her comments about my work meant a lot to me.

In Mexico, we honor our family members who passed away in the Day of the dead; this was the reason I wanted to create a piece with the sugar skull inspiration from day of the dead.

This skull has crosses and butterflies which represent transformation, her soul and faith. The tree of life on top of the skull has a Milagros heart symbolizing Louise big love for her family, friends and her craft, it also has butterflies. In Mexico we have a saying that when you see a butterfly someone has come to visit you, their souls come to visit you.

Louise's Calavera
©2014 Lorena Angulo
Bronze

Louise's Calavera
©2014 Lorena Angulo
Bronze and steel wire (pin)

Louise, I love you and I thank you for every word of support during my journey with thyroid cancer and for making me feel that my work was valuable! ♥

Cafe Estrella, 2002.

Sterling silver, found object, patina; cast, constructed.

1 7/8 x 1 7/8 x 3/8 in.

Photo: Alex Jordan

Thursday, February 6, 2014

"Angel Guardian" Milagro heart

I finally finished my "Angel Guardian" Milagro Heart, I can not express how happy I am with this piece. Hope you all enjoy it too!!

It all started with an idea!

Angel Guardian Milagro Heart (brooch-pendant)
©2014 Lorena Angulo
Bronze (Goldie Bronze), Garnets and turquoise

Sunday, February 2, 2014

The Making of my "Angel Guardian" Milagro Heart

Lots of people has asked me how do I start creating my pieces and if I start with an idea and then follow up on it. Yes, I find the inspiration all the time from my cultural heritage and folk art from Mexico. Mexico for me is a strong influence, no matter if it is a piece of jewelry, a painting or a paper doll. I like to create pieces that are close to my heart and that have a strong meaning of what I am and where I come from, this gives me the great opportunity to create pieces that can transmit this great passion.

Since the beginning of this year I have been focused on creating strong and soulful pieces that will allow me to transmit a story and an emotional feeling. In this occasion I wanted to go back to my beginnings where I was obsessed with making a lot the "Milagro Hearts", they are always close in my heart and I think it is time again I honored this wonderful symbolic icon in my work.

I started by sketching my ideas in my book, I have had a sketching book since I started making my work and I always go back to it and see what ideas I still have on paper that are still waiting for me to became real.

Sketching is something I enjoy a lot, I think you do not have to be a great drawer to be able to transmit your ideas and I hope everyone will have one no matter what medium you work in.

This heart will have the butterflies (representing transformation and soul), the guardian angel (representing protection and guidance), the cross (faith) and a healed Milagro Heart (representing the big Love for life, family, work and principally love for yourself and what you are; respect.)

After having my drawing finished then I am ready to start building this piece little by little. Pieces like this have a lot of details and I make each one of them individually by hand; each little butterfly is made alone and this makes them more unique and not looking like they were all cut out from a mold. This is what makes my pieces be more soulful, in my humble opinion.

Making each one of the pieces is a joy for me, every single detail has my total attention and this is one of the parts of my process in creating that I enjoy a lot.

Little by little I will put all the pieces together and finally will have my "Guardian Angel Milagro Heart" finished. I will have more work to do in this piece, finishing more details and then finally attaching all the pieces to the heart.

Work in progress
Angel Guardian Milagro Heart
©2014 Lorena Angulo
Goldie Bronze and Hessonite Garnets

Hope you like my post, I am always happy to share with all of you what I do and how I work.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Corazon Renacer , my journey.

Corazon Renacer (reborn heart) symbolizes the journey I experienced last year, the sensation of feeling scare for the unknown and what the future will be and the way how all the pain and insecurities transformed into faith and a strong will to keep moving forward.

One of the new symbolic elements that I am adding to my work is the use of the butterflies. I am using the butterflies because they embrace the will to accept transformation in the best way possible, to enjoy every minute of your life with faith and positivism, to overcome any obstacles and learn from them and focus only in the positive.

In my brooch-pendant "Corazon Renacer" I wanted to include the Milagro Hearts with the butterflies, I added a scar in the center of the big heart and all the butterflies which symbolizes any obstacle or problem that has made us stronger and that has transformed us into better people.

Corazon Renacer (brooch-pendant)
©2014 Lorena Angulo
Bronze (Goldie Bronze)
3.18 inches by 2.85 inches by 0.33 inches

"We all have the power to transform pain into something good, we are the ones who decide to sit and suffer or stand up and choose to live life to the fullest no matter what. "

Thursday, April 26, 2012

New pieces in my Arbol de Vida Collection

Since I started making and designing my jewelry I have been making various trees of life in different forms. I always love the symbolic meaning of the "Arbol de Vida" and it has been my passion to make them all the time.

The tree of life represent the union between earth and heaven. It was said that the founder gods in Mexico came down to earth through the trees. I love to make them using flowers and birds because they represent new life, hope and love.

My latest piece is going to be a necklace and I am still working in it. It gives me joy to see this piece come alive little by little.

My other pieces in this collection are one more brooch and earrings. Every piece I design is unique and have the same feeling of nostalgia about the wonderful folk art from my beautiful country, Mexico.

Amor
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (silver)

Arbol de Vida Esperanza
(tree of life hope)
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (silver)

Saturday, April 14, 2012

The making of my "Tree of Life" brooch

Going back to my first days when I played with metal clay, I still remember how confusing this material was for me at the beginning. I already started taking silversmithing classes at Southwest School of Art and my mind was use to the rough playing with hammers, jeweler saws and metal sheets. Metal clay was such a confusion but I knew I will like it.

I played with metal clay two or three times and then I just decided to leave it on the side and focus on my metalsmithing work. It was until I took a casting class that I totally understood what this wonderful new material will do for me.

Casting is an option but I did not have the equipment to do it in my home, this is why metal clay was the perfect option.

I love to hand sculpt and carve and metal clay will give me the amazing opportunity to make pieces I have always had in my design note book. My designs are very three dimensional and with lots of details, metal clay will make all my ideas come to reality.

Since that day I have not been able to stop creating with metal clay, I still do some fabrication work but most of my pieces are made with metal clay. I absorbed myself into this way of working with the material, time can fly by and I feel like I have only been minutes working. I am so relax and happy hand sculpting and carving every detail in all my work and finally yesterday I finished my first brooch I made with my tree of life design.

The Tree of Life (Arbol de Vida) is one of my symbolic pieces, I have made it into earrings, pendants, necklaces and cuffs. Now it was my turn to make it as a brooch.

I am a passionate about detailing my work with a lot of attention in every side of my pieces. Spending time to make nice and clean finishing in the front is as important as taking your time to do the same on the back. I am not only talking about having a secret detail on the back, I am talking about having a clean and nice finishing. Craftsmanship is very important and we all must take our time to do so.

ARBOL DE VIDA
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

More playing time with Sterling PMC

Finally I had the time to play again in my studio and create jewelry. I have been busy with some personal issues and with lots of paperwork, I really missed playing again !!

I wanted to make a brooch with Sterling PMC .One of my signature pieces, Sacred/Milagro Heart, that I love to create was my option for this brooch.

This time I change a little my firing schedule on the second stage (charcoal). Instead of firing for 45 minutes like I did in my first time playing with Sterling PMC, I decided I will fired the brooch for 1 and a half hour at 1500F.

The brooch came out perfectly and I will continue to fire my pieces the longest time I can do for the second stage.

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Love,

Lorena Angulo

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

A look from Behind

I have always thought that the back of any jewelry piece is as important as the front. I always try to have something on the back of my pieces as a surprise for the wearer and also because I think it says a lot about the maker.
Most of the work I do has a detail on the back, I enjoy very much doing it.

Lately I started making brooches but I was very curious to see how other artists where making their pin backs and the back of their designs. I looked for inspiration everywhere but it was very hard to find images of the back side of the brooches.
Because I had a difficult time finding images of the back view of brooches I started thinking it will be great if I can create a collection of images from other artists as an inspirational tool.

I finally did it in my Pinterest page, I created a board about the back view of brooches called "Behind the brooch."

Come and take a look at the wonderful work by these artists. I am sure you will find it very interesting and helpful.

I took a class with the talented Gary Schott at Southwest School of Art and I learned how to make my first pin back with him. It was fun and I know I have to practice much more to feel more comfortable making my own pin backs and also start thinking of different ways I can design my own.

I also work a lot with metal clay and took the challenge to make my own pin back and pendant finding for my piece.

How do you approach the design of your work ? Do you do something special for the back side? I will love to find out what your ideas about this topic are and if you want me to share an image of your back view of a brooch, let me know and I will add it to my board.

Love,
Lorena Angulo
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