If you're into jewelry, you will enjoy one of Lark publications latest efforts, "Jewelry Design Challenge" by Linda Kopp. In this book, thirty well-known metalsmiths and jewelry artists from around the country were given packages containing ten identical materials (copper and sterling silver sheet, sterling tubing, copper washers, leather cord, copper and sterling wire, fine silver mesh, and several black and white pearls) and asked to create a piece using as many of the provided materials as they wished, and as an aside, they were allowed to use one extra material, a "wild card" so to speak, of their choice that was not provided in the kit. What a fun concept! The diversity of the finished projects was amazing. ''This book proved to be very entertaining and insightful and I highly recommend it to anyone who has an appreciation of one-of-a-kind and limited edition art jewelry. Jewelry Design Challenge: 10 Materials * 30 Artists * 30 Spectacular Projects (Lark Jewelry Books)
I am really impressed by the creativity of this group of artists. I found the whole concept of giving them all the same materials (plus one "wild card" item) and seeing what they come up with quite fascinating! If you belong to a crafing group, this would be an awesome idea to incorporate into your group. Get together a kit, either the same one used in this book or something totally different, and give (sell) one kit to each person. Imagine all the fun you would have to see what you and your friends come up with.
I like that this is not just a picture book of beautiful jewelry, but that instructions are included. The instructions are not detailed enough for the beginner but do provide sufficient information for the more advanced student to be able to reproduce the jewelry.
I really like the challenge for the artist to be able to complete a project
with limited materials plus most had a wild card material. I have gone
back and forth looking at the different projects and have done one with
the instructions and they have several patterns templates in the back.
I've gone back and forth between giving this book 3 or 4 stars. From my own point of view, I can't give it 5, although others may be able to quite legitimately do so.
Strengths: the projects are creative, extremely well-executed, and will be very inspirational to people viewing the book.
The cover says "30 artists..." and it isn't exaggerating. These are not people who call themselves artists because they sell some work here and there. They are professional artists who have considerable skill in their field(s).
Weaknesses: For someone like me, who has little metals training, the directions are scant to the point of being useless. *I* cannot use the directions to produce anything even close to these pieces. That doesn't mean others can't. It occurs to me, however, that if you've got the skill to actually produce projects like these, you could very likely look at the pieces and know how they're done. But I don't actually know that.
At first I was tempted to just send the book back. But truthfully, the projects are really cool, and I want to keep it around for inspiration. I was tempted to give the book only 3 stars because I'm not going to be able to produce projects from it - not anytime soon, anyway, and probably not ever. I gave it 4 stars because of the inspirational value of the work. I may be able to produce a few components like the ones in the book, or I may be able to produce the "look" of some items in another way. But please know if you've flipped through the book in a bookstore, and have thought you would like to make some of the projects, you won't find COMPLETE instructions here. If you already have significant metalworking skills, this book will likely be very useful to you. - Jewelry Design - Metalsmithing - Jewelry - Silversmithing'
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