Klimt02 is a website that provides an international forum for contemporary jewelry in a creative space that offers knowledge, information, debates, and exchanges - all within the artistic realm of jewelry. Based in Barcelona, Spain, Kilmt02 inspires everyone interested in the selection, quality, art, technology, and creation of art jewelry. Sheffield School has kindly been given permission to share works of global designers here on our website. Today's post focuses on a jewelry designer from Greenville, SC, Kate Furman, whose jewelry designs use a prolific amount of wood + talent.
Kate Furman
Kate Furman
Necklace: Splinters 2012
Found wood, brass
32” x 16” x 1”
Kate Furman
Necklace: Splinters 2012
Found wood, brass
32” x 16” x 1”
Detail
Kate Furman
Necklace: Limbs 2012
Found wood, brass
12” x 2 1/2” x 1 1/2”
Kate Furman
Necklace: Hewn 2012
Found wood, brass, steel, sterling silver
15” x 3” x 1 1/2”
Kate Furman
Necklace: Hewn 2012
Found wood, brass, steel, sterling silver
15” x 3” x 1 1/2”
Detail
Kate Furman
Necklace: Reassembled 2012
Found wood, steel, suede, epoxy resin
4 1/2” x 3 “ x 1 1/2”
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Statement
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Nature is my greatest inspiration. While in the woods surrounded by the astonishing details of a tree trunk’s swollen scar or the intricate furrows of creatures burrowing beneath its bark, my senses are fully engaged. In my work, I translate this admiration and wonder into jewelry, a format as intimate to the body as the moments I pass in untouched, tranquil wilderness. After gathering detritus from the forest floor, I manipulate, alter, and respond to the beauty within branches, bark, and sticks. By tracing and replicating the curves of the human body, my pieces contour and move to it, thereby intertwining and activating each other.
I am interested in calling attention to the intersection between people and the environment through ways the two affect each other. As Sigmund Freud describes in Civilization and Its Discontents, humans repress the environment and their animal instinct in order to control nature and live a civilized life. My process responds to this need without taking full authority over the natural materials. Instead, I direct a harmonious dialogue between them, revealing the ways we affect and intersect each other. The resulting forms show a sense of my influence but retain an inherent rawness; a collaboration and language of mark-making develops between us.
- Kate Furman
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