Left: Crystal Pop Out Pendant     Right: Tessellation Constellation

People often ask me what my training was: architect? graphic designer? engineer? I actually started out as a jewelry designer and developed my artistic voice through this medium.

The ideas that I was interested at the jewelry scale are still evident in the sculptures I make today. I created jewelry that was inspired by geometry and architectural forms and started thinking bigger and bigger, eventually transitioning into a sculptor and installation artist. Although the materials are different, the attention to detail and fabrication techniques that I use in my sculpture are the same ones that I use in jewelry but just at a different scale.

Left: Tessellation Constellation     Right: Gego Earrings

Tessellation Constellation, an installation I created for Facebook Austin, is made up of wooden sticks that I assemble with wire to create mesmerizing 3D forms of triangles and squares. A similar technique and design can be found in my Gego Earrings, where simple lines have been linked together to come alive and form 3D geometric shapes.

Left: The Fractal Nature of Things     Right: Circle Pop Out Pendant

With the way simple shapes connect and interact, there are a lot of similarities between The Fractal Nature of Things and many of my jewelry designs composed with circular elements.

Left: Long Bubble Earrings     Right: The Fractal Nature of Things

All of them start from basic building blocks, whether it is a circle or a rectangle, that come together to form complete sculptures.

from melissa borrell on Vimeo.

My most recent art ideas involve kinetics, as seen from my work-in-progress installation: Kinetic Tessellation. I’m intrigued by how the shapes change as the installation spinning around. This interest in kinetics has always been with me, even while I was primarily a jewelry designer.

Grid Earrings

My jewelry pieces, like the Gego earrings and Grid Earrings, are designed to be flexible and can change shape as they’re being worn!

Left: Wave     Right: Wide Topography Necklace

Side by side comparisons of my jewelry and artwork really show how my work has transformed and evolved. I often refer to my jewelry as “wearable sculpture” and love the idea that when I’m wearing my jewelry, I always have a piece of my art with me.