4/9/05 | Pio Playground
Rachel Lavin from Pio makes use of her metalsmithing skills to create unusual metal pieces that she uses in necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings. Although she is currently based in Austin, TX she has lived in a variety of places including New York, Portland, Boston and Mexico (where she originally learned about working with metal).
From her website:
After graduating from Brown University with majors in anthropology and Spanish, she led kids on mountain hikes in Maine, then worked as a clinic assistant at Planned Parenthood, then played with images on the computer for Hearst Publications’ Interactive Studios. After Hearst, she ran away to a town called San Miguel de Allende in Mexico that’s known for being heavily populated by artists and American retirees. It was there that she learned metalsmithing; she’ll never forget the first moment she melted a small piece of wire into a perfectly round ball - the moment that she knew jewelry-making was the ideal outlet for her obsessive nature and her need to constantly create.
A lot of her designs are sort of unusual in shape and form. There were some rustic looking earrings shaped like grapes that were pretty interesting. I also saw some rings that were either squarish or had one square side and the rest being round. One of the neatest ongoing themes in her work seem to be the use of so called “pods”. The necklace pictured is called a “Pod Drop” which is a sort of hollowed out silver half ball with tiny silver balls inset in it. It sort of reminds me of a fruit with some seeds in it. Kind of a cool, unusual technique.
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