Contemporary Wire Jewelry: Shapes Brought to Life by Jera Lodge

Math. You either hate it or love it. Either way—you need it. And, you need algebra. Maybe not all the algebra they say you need to know before going into 9^th grade, but you do need it. And you need geometry. And physics. There are so many more applications than many of us would like to have admitted in high school. If they had only told us that math could help with jewelry making, we (those of us who were against it!) might’ve paid more attention! Jera Lodge shares how math helps her bring shapes to life in her contemporary wire jewelry designs.

Above: Trigon Collar mild steel wire collar by Jera Lodge. Photo courtesy of Jera Lodge

Despite the fact that Jera Lodge’s jewelry looks like line drawings made wearable, her pieces never begin as a sketch. She designs while building. “I start with the physical material. I have a general idea of the space I want to occupy or movement I want to achieve,” she explains. “Then I start working on the shapes. I figure out what I want the modular unit to be — if there is one — and then the pattern, how to link together those pieces and create movement.”

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“It’s a little backwards,” she admits. “Most of what I create is so line-based, and line is one of my main inspirations. And yet I do very little drawing.”

At her workbench are large spools of steel wire in different thicknesses, a little ruler jig she rigged up to easily cut even pieces, her saw, and some pliers and snips. She begins by notching, cutting, bending, and forming the pieces and laying them out. Then she solders the units together and cold-connects them into links.

One of the most interesting aspects of Lodge’s jewelry is something you can’t fathom until you pick it up, manipulate it — and realize it was designed to transform. Her Hexagon necklace, for example, looks one way when you drape it around your neck, another when you pile it up, still another if you hang it from the wall.

While they look fairly simple, her designs involve a lot of math. One collection was based on the eightfold symmetry of snowflakes. Her chains are an exercise in carefully engineered pattern-making, beginning with shape and line, then adding layers in incremental lengths. Her workbench is littered with scribbled figures. If she starts with a length of seven, and the bottom is three, she adds layers in half centimeters, working toward the middle.

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Occasionally she embraces randomness, as with her Abacus necklace, with beads strung on hair-like copper-coated wire. “That was, for me, an exercise in letting go,” she laughs. “I have this tendency to want order and precision.”

To stay up to date with Jera and view more of her contemporary wire jewelry, visit her website and Instagram @jerarosepetal.

Excerpted from Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist, Stylized Nature by Cathleen McCarthy

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