Pretty Personal with Diana James
Fans of sculpture, 80s video games, and geometry, rejoice! Dor&kie Jewellery Objects has managed to take all three and combine them into a range of wood-based jewellery that’s both chic and unique. We found out the story behind the name, and more.
- Hello Diana! Tell us a little about yourself.
I’ve always had a love for art, but I felt that my natural talent wasn’t good enough to pursue a career as an artist, so I ended up studying Jewellery Design and Manufacture at CPUT, mostly due to my fascination with the detail of everyday things and the “small scale” world.
- And what led you to use wood as a primary medium?
Dor&kie happened by chance - we were moving house, and ended up building a lot at our new house, so my jewelry workshop/tools were in storage for a long time. To keep myself busy I started experimenting in the space available to me, which was a woodworking workshop, and just fell in love with wood and its potential as a sculptural material; and being a jeweler I started using it in my work.
The name dor&kie references a lot of things: firstly a door and a key, and since I’m a total dork and a Afrikaner, I’ve decided to use only one “o” for door to reference ‘dork’, and the Afrikaans “kie” instead of the English “Co” for company.
- Hahahahaha! That’s certainly an original name! Your pieces are also very distinctive - tell us about them?
My favourite pieces to make are the rings. I try something different with every ring, and doesn’t matter how much I design and sketch before hand, the final piece is always a surprise. I’ve recently started working with Polymer clay, to add some colour to my pieces, and I’m also trying to incorporate more metal.
- You decided to use wood as a material after spending time in the workshop you mentioned - what influenced the decision to use geometric shapes?
As a jeweler, inspiration can come from a broad range of things, such as nature, fashion, architecture etc. Mostly my work resembles geometric structures that reference the field of gemology and the of cutting stones. So in a way my work references a field parallel to jewellery, but by using wood it changes the quality of the overall piece. Gemology focuses on obtaining the most brilliance from a stone by cutting it into facets to ‘capture’ the light entering the stone, but by replicating these facets in wood the piece becomes sculptural - not adding a function to the material used, but a general sculptural look and feel.
- What’s your favourite thing about doing what you do?
Pushing the boundaries of the material I’m using, and also my capabilities as a manufacturer/craftsperson. I love exploring the relationship of jewellery and how it fits and interacts with the body. This aspect of jewellery is another reason why I love using wood in my work. Wood is soft on the skin compared to cold hard metal and due to its weight, I can play around with the scale of my pieces.
I have a dor&kie pendant myself, and it’s one of my favourite things. You can get your new favourite thing in the dor&kie Hello Pretty store, and get in touch on Facebook and Twitter. And, if you check back here on Monday, we might just have a little something to give away…
