Hedgehog earrings

Sterling silver

34mm x 15mm x 15mm

My work combines traditional jewelry fabrication techniques and limited production digital manufacturing tools. I often think of my studio practice as an exercise in discursive design. Discursive design treats objects principally as transmitters of substantive ideas, rather than instruments of utility. I see problems with jewelry and other wearable objects that have a singular focus. I believe that an emotional response can be influenced through re-making/repairing/re-creating objects into wearable works.

Using digital tools to make unique expressive work often re-defines the role of the hand in a contemporary craft practice. Borrowing tools reserved for industrial manufacturing provides an opportunity to re-establish the role of the craftsmen in today’s consumer culture. Like other designed objects, my work often retains a manufactured aesthetic that helps focus a worn object’s ability to blend into the contemporary environment it occupies.

Artist bio:
Arthur is a freelance Jewelry designer/digital consultant who shares a studio with his wife and fellow jeweler, Liz Clark in Providence, Rhode Island. For the last fifteen years Arthur has taught digital fabrication and Jewelry Design courses at multiple universities across the country including the Rhode Island School of Design, Virginia Commonwealth University in and SUNY New Paltz. Arthur has managed/operated multiple digital fabrication/metals facilities including Makerbot Innovation Centers, Digital Design and Fabrication certificate programs and MIT Fab Labs. His personal studio practice incorporates industrial technologies such as waterjet cutting, 3D scanning, CNC routing, rapid prototyping and laser engraving to make one-off wearable, art jewelry pieces, large archival ink-jet prints, production jewelry and wearable interactive electronics.