|
*Reprinted with permission from the Journal Inquirer
Long distance relationship
Artists use Internet link to create unique accessories
By Leslie B. Placzek
For the Journal Inquirer
From her home in South Windsor, artist Lori Bouchard mailed five small items to her jewelry design partner, Sandra Cowan, in Caldwell, Texas. “She said, ‘None of these pieces go together- what can you make?’” recalls Cowan, who responded, “it’s a fairy garden!” She visualized a new pendant: a fairy surveys a three-dimensional flower garden, bird in a tree and road bending toward infinity from its perch on a fence it shares with a spider, bucket, and wheelbarrow.
A scroll through the designers’ Web site boutique, Jewelry Destiny, evokes a romp through a fairy garden to a world of fantasy and dream- a deep-sea dive to the lost city of Atlantis, a midnight flight with monarch butterflies, and a glimpse of a cyan silver-scaled dragon with lavender wings- where “beauty is inevitable.” Each handcrafted piece is as unique as the woman wearing it. “We believe beauty is not just how you look, but something you are,” Says Bouchard. “All women are beautiful.”
On launching their web site in late 2005, Cowan and Bouchard- who have yet to meet- agreed the “Jewelry Destiny” was a fitting name for their serendipitous partnership. “We were thrown together, we talked and it just clicked,” says Bouchard. “It was fate.” The two met in an online jewelry design forum, admired each other’s work, and agreed to collaborate. “We called each other and have been on the phone daily since,” she admits. “We meshed right away and we work together so well I still can’t believe it.”
Bouchard says this harmony stems from their love of “rich and earthy tones, gemstones, intricate detail, and funky, abstract things with stories,” as well as an ability to propel a creative idea through the design process by “collaborating and brainstorming” until completion. Cowan adds they are “wild and wooly. What we create comes from our minds and hearts.”
The artists bring very different expertise to their design partnership.
Cowan started painting at age 9 and has sold many oil paintings to galleries and museums across the United States and abroad. Needing something that she could “bend, mold, and shape,” she began making jewelry. Inspired by “real-life”, Cowan crafts her reversible pendants using clay, glass, metal, wire, and her skill with a paintbrush. Many of these jewelry art pieces appear on her personal Web site, www.imageevent.com/uniques/
Bouchard always worked with “whatever was around the house”. One day, after crafting roses from white bread and Elmer’s glue, she realized she could “use polymer clay to make little roses for jewelry”. That discovery led her to create more jewelry and get “hooked on” chain-making techniques on jewelry Web sites. Her own Web site: www.rosesofonegarden.com showcases her clay, chain maille, and other creations.
The artists encourage each other to experiment with styles and materials. “Whatever our creative needs to make is what make,” says Bouchard. Cowan first molds clay into pendants and centerpieces, then asks Bouchard to craft the attached chains. Cowan uses Aves clay, a mix of clay and epoxy that, when dry, can be cut only with a diamond saw blade.
Sometimes, Bouchard coils a chain, then requests a matching pendant. “I coil huge coils of wire to the right size, then cut them and weave the rings together into patterns,” Bouchard says. The process is “very time intensive.”
Developing a new concept also takes time. Credere, the fantasy dragon piece, started forming in Cowan’s mind after Bouchard suggested they make a dragon. “Sandy started playing- it took her about three days to make him,” Bouchard says. “She e-mailed me pictures as she went along, we threw ideas around, and I sent her beads and stones. When he was finished she sent him to me to make into a necklace.”
Upon receiving Credere, Bouchard was “floored”. Though she has seen few of Cowan’s fantasy art clay pieces in person, these pieces motivated the artists to work together. “I loved her work, which she wanted to complement with my chains,” she adds. Distance necessitates shipping pieces back and forth. Sometimes Bouchard sends Cowan a chain for a piece, or Cowan sends Bouchard a piece for chain maille.
The two designers have created synergy through their creative exchanges. “She does what I can’t do and vice versa,” says Cowan. The Calla Lily necklace, a graceful sterling silver and aquamarine piece, boasts tendrils that appear to be extensions of the pendant rather than the chain. “Each chain and pendant is a work of art on its own, but you need both for impact,” she adds.
Though some were “shocked and skeptical” about the partnership, Bouchard cites advantages to physical separation. “Communicating by phone improves brainstorming- we’re not as distracted visually- and I can do Internet research at the same time.” Though the two typically talk “twice a day for several hours,” distance can hinder growth, in that learning each other’s techniques is possible only in person.
The pieces displayed on Jewelry Destiny are those, which Bouchard says, “meet a certain standard of artistic merit and price point.” At times, each artist’s work inspires the other to create. “We decided not to delineate between who did what, because we’re both responsible for all the pieces, whether through inspiration or physical labor,” she notes.
Each completed Jewelry destiny pieces inspires a story. Upon seeing a photo of some new copper pendants, Bouchard said, “Oh they’re so rich, earthy and African- I thought of the Swahili songs my mother used to sing to me.” She searched the Internet for fitting Swahili names and stories. Cowan wrote all of the fantasy tales.
Bouchard may start a piece by “picking up some wire and seeing what it wants to do.”
Occasionally, “one of us is not feeling it, so we’ll take time off, but someone’s always working on something.” Cowan says this constant flow of creativity comes from the artists’ “open-minded” outlook. “We mentor each other- she lets me extend my creativity,” she adds.
For this team, imagination is fickle. Bouchard says that because of their spontaneous design process, “each piece has its own personality and a little piece of both of us. We probably couldn’t make the same piece twice- but we can get bored making a second earring.”
The pair continues to challenge themselves to improve their skills and blaze new trails. “We want to break the ground of how people see and wear jewelry,” she says. “People buy jewelry to accessorize clothes- we want them to buy jewelry to accessorize themselves.”
The Jewelry Destiny Web site, www.jewelrydestiny.com, contains artist biographies, contact and purchase information, photos of the collection, links to the artists’ Web sites, and show schedules. | 
