The newest issue of Wirework Magazine hits newsstands this week and we are thrilled to announce that it contains not one, but TWO great chainmaille projects by B3 Ambassadors! Pick up your issue and try your hand at Kat Wisniewski’s Celtic Diamond Pendant or Vanessa Walilko’s Art Deco Necklace (…or why choose?  Make both!)  We will not be selling kits for these projects as of yet but we will of course be selling everything you need to complete them including 20mm Crystal Rings and Crystal Triangles.  Check out our magazine projects page for your shopping list for these projects and more (we’re working on doing some major catching-up/updating to this page in the coming weeks so check back often for even more project supply lists.)

ORDER YOUR COPY OF WIREWORK FALL 2011

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Celtic Diamond Pendant

by Kat Wisniewski

Customize this project a million different ways with our top-quality jump rings and shiny glass rings. Note: the sizes in the magazine are incorrect! We’ve tested this piece heavily in our ring sizes listed on on the magazine supply page, and it works perfectly.

GO TO PROJECT SHOPPING LIST

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Art Deco Necklace

by Vanessa Walilko

We’re selling these dazzling large crystal rings and crystal triangles, especially for this beautiful project.  Make it impossibly light with our bright aluminum rings, or pair these glittering crystals with our impeccable sterling silver rings for a real show-stopper.

GO TO PROJECT SHOPPING LIST

See a project in a book or magazine that we haven’t made a supply list for?  Send us an email at community@bluebuddhaboutique.com!  Our interns LOVE testing new projects and can help take the guesswork out of your next project.

B3 Ambassadors · chainmaille projects · Fall 2011 · kat wisniewski · vanessa walilko · Wirework Magazine

We came across this very cool online, International, jewelry exhibition on Wearable Art Blog today (a blog we highly recommend – they feature tons of inspiring things on there!)  As we were clicking through, we noticed not one but two pieces made by B3 Ambassador Vanessa Walilko.  You all know Vanessa as a very talented chainmaille artist, yet (as these pieces prove) she is an equally gifted beader and one look is enough to let you know why she is so frequently featured in exhibitions of awe-inspiring jewelry and wearable art.  We are so proud to have her as a supporter of Blue Buddha and wanted to give her props as always on being included in this cool collection of contemporary jewelry.

Photos by Larry Sanders.

Clicking through, we also noticed a couple very striking pieces from jewelry artist and mailler Anne M. Kelly (who incidentally, like Rebeca, is a contributor to Chain Mail Jewelry: Contemporary Designs from Classic Techniques!)  We of course had to visit her site to see more and boy, we were not disappointed.  Really beautiful work.

Ann M. Kelly · beading · chainmaille · jewelry artists · vanessa walilko · wearable art

I did not plan on submitting something to the fashion show at the One of a Kind Show this year, simply because with everything else going on, I didn’t think I’d have time to craft something worthy. However, when they invited me to submit something last week, I couldn’t say no. So over the holiday, I whipped up a piece with size X12 (12ga 7/16″ / 11.1 mm) anodized aluminum. There are about 325 rings in this necklace. This batch of iridescent gunmetal came out just perfect, and I can’t wait to make a few more pieces to wear in the booth!

The photo isn’t the best, but I literally had about 2 minutes to shoot it, before I had to pack it up and get it in the mail. And now, to run back home and make more jewelry! All of my scale pieces sold at the DIY Trunk Show, so I’m making dozens more by Thursday. Whew!

anodized aluminum · chain mail · chainmaille jewelry · One of a Kind show · runway jewelry · X12

Clothes are a representation of our culture:  an expression of an industrialized society where repetition is used in the service of the assembly line.  In my pieces, the intensive handwork makes the process the most important part and gives me my inspiration.  Chainmaille has been the catalyst to every other medium I excel in.  All of the mediums I enjoy are obsessive and have repetitive patterns.

Through chainmaille, I have found my patience.

- Sky Cubacub

Above: Sky Cubacub models her own work for a show at Swimming Pool Project Space in Chicago, IL

It feels like we here at B3 have watched strikingly original Chicago artist Sky Cubacub grow up right before our eyes.  A radical thinker and maker, Sky uses the ancient art of chainmaille and other traditional crafts including scherenschnitte (traditional paper cutting) and embroidery to explore contemporary subject matter and create modern (think futuristic) “body sculpture”.  Oh, and did we mention she is barely old enough to vote?

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Your work is so strikingly sophisticated I always forget you just finished high school!  Where do you think this impetus for such thoughtful creativity came from for you?

Both my parents are multi media artists, so I didn’t really have a choice, I was just born with it.

How did you have time to make the work you make and still keep up with school?

Last year was easy to make time for my work because I had a senior project, which was 3 out of the 6 periods, and I had sculpture, drawing/painting and shakespeare lit outside of that. I basically never stop working, even during passing periods I will be chainmailling, and when I walk, I just embroider.

Have you always been interesting in making fashion and wearable art?

I have always loved wearing costumes and since I could dress myself I always wore two different colored socks, but I didn’t start adding found object to clothes until the 7th grade, and it wasn’t until freshman year that I really got into it making garments, but it was more of an interest in making bigger chainmaille projects.

Above: Sky Models Chainmaille dress, 2008-2009, Byzantine weave with aluminum rings (Left) and previews her Wayang Kulit Collection at Redmoon Theaters J.O.E. 2010 (Right)

Why make wearable art instead of more traditional fashion or sculpture?

Traditional fashion has been done to death and I do make sculpture as well.  I actually prefer to call what I make “body sculpture”

What inspired you start working with chainmaille?

At Caravan Beads, I always saw the samples of projects made in the classes they offered, and I loved the chainmaille ones the best, but they always said I was too young to take the class, so I finally got to take it with my mother when I turned 13.

Above: A piece from Sky’s “Repetitive Motions” collection/show

The chainmaille couture world is pretty small (meaning you are certainly a pioneer).  Who do look to for inspiration?

I don’t look to other fashion designers, instead I get my inspiration from people like Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes, and I also get a lot of inspiration from the chainmaille weaves themselves.

What other materials do you enjoy working with?

I also specialize in traditional paper cutting called scherenschnitte. Embroidery, cardboard, wax, found object (washers, scissors, pop tops, army men)

Above: Sky Models a wearable piece that use two specific scherenschnitte patterns (Left) and her work Army Man Dress, 2008, melted army men, plastic tanks (Right)

Sadly, we missed your show in June due to Bead & Button show craziness, what do you have coming up that we should keep our eyes peeled for?

I am working on my next collection, but it will not have any chainmaille in it.  I have some pictures on my fanpage on facebook- under preview of Wayang Kulit collection. It will be a collection of life sized wearable shadow puppets.

You recently previewed one of the pieces from that collection at Redmoon Theater’s first ever J.O.E. at Belmont Harbor.  How did you get involved with Redmoon?

My friend from working with Dzine got me in contact with the people from Redmoon. I interned with Redmoon over the summer, helping with coloring and puppet mechanics for their show, The Astronaut’s Birthday at the MCA. I was originally going to make costumes, but they ended up cutting that part out of the show.  I am currently working for Redmoon on their annual Winter Pageant, making costumes for a family of puppets and  I definitly would love to continue working for them, but I think I will limit myself to working during the summers to make time for my own work as well.

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See Sky’s work in Redmoon‘s Winter Pageant and visit her page on facebook and her website to stay in the loop about the release of her new collection.

chainmaille · chainmaille clothing · chicago · creative lounge · fashion · sculpture · sky cubacub · wearable art