Inspiration and new designs

I was lucky enough to travel with my husband to Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany last summer. Our first stop was Vienna, the home of my favorite artist, Gustav Klimt. I finally got to see his famous painting The Kiss. As cliche as it seems sometimes (since it is reproduced so much) it was beautiful to behold. The textures mixed with the gold was more stunning than I could have imagined. If only I could make that into jewelry! One of my favorite jewelry designers, Alex Sepkus, must be influenced by Klimt. The texture and shapes in his work reminds me of a Klimt painting.

We went to see Klimt's Beethoven frieze which is a large mural he painted to celebrate Beethoven's 9th symphony. He was part of an art movement in Vienna called the Secession and this building was built for them to exhibit their work. I was fascinated by the decoration on the outside of the building. The top of it has a large gold globe made of leaves which is amazing, but I was drawn to the image you see at the top of this post. This year I made jewelry based on this floral texture and I am really happy with the way this suite of work turned out.