The Challenge of Changing Earrings

Alright, more construction chatter. I thought I’d go for the hardest form to talk about … earrings. Mind you the construction of earrings themselves are not usually challenging but that’s the point. What else can you do with them but create a bead of some kind and attach an ear wire or a post? Finding something different to share … THAT turned out to be quite a challenge.

So let’s think about this.  What about the earring form is different from all other adornment? Well, two things come to mind … for one, they are usually made in pairs and secondly, they are the only standard type of body adornment that doesn’t go ‘around’ a body part. We have two ears so we think we need two earrings because of the symmetry inherent in the pair of ears that they will adorn. So that is the first area we can push … the symmetry. I’ve seen quite a bit of this kind of thing–a pair of earrings that are related in form and color but are not alike. Have you ever tried that?

That is not so much about construction as about the type of design you choose. The second unique characteristic is the fact that earrings hang off the ear in some manner, so they have the potential for movement as well as being seen from nearly all sides. Can we push the construction to exploit these characteristics? (Because it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t ask you to consider pushing an idea!)

With earrings you have all this open space below an ear to work with and when the wearer moves, the earring can move through all this space. So why not exploit the possibility of movement? This might require a few more connections, maybe a row of beads or multiple dangles. There will need to be some consideration of how they will hang from the post or ear wire if there are multiple parts. But this could be fun.

So this is what I found for you. Talk about movement! Here we have the polymer not only able to swing in the space below the ear but this eclectic jewelry artist, Sunitha Lal, makes more space within the polymer, space from which additional pieces can swing and move as well provide areas of attachment to hang additional beads.

The chandelier style of earring here is not that unique, certainly not in metal work. But in polymer, creating space as part of the design is not utilized quite as often. I imagine much of that has to do with consideration for strength but also it may simply be out of habit, some kind of standard that we’ve established whereby we expect to make solid pieces to dangle from our ears.

If you have any unusual earring constructions, I’d love to see them. Perhaps we can share a few at the end of the week. Just write me directly at sbray@thepolymerarts.com.

And if you want to expand your repertoire of ear wires and findings, don’t miss our next issue in which we have a whole article on that very subject. Subscribe or renew at www.thepolymerarts.com to ensure you don’t miss out!