: Metals Artist and Jewelry Designer
Metal artist Denise Ward has spent 30 years designing art jewelry. Her quirky and colorful earring designs have been featured in art galleries, gift shops and festival markets. Earrings were a feature at The Kennedy Center in D.C. for their COLOR PURPLE THE MUSICAL in 2018 in their Gift Shop supporting this show, and a series of jazz singers for their Fall 2018 season.
Ward developed a love for Kinetic art sculptures, sharing this wit students at the elementary schools where she taught art classes. Loving the work of Alexander Calder inspired Ward to create a new series of metal sculptures in 2019. This new medium places her love of color Into motion, and a new work has begun. Ward’s clients love the collaborative way the projects are about their space, designed in their colors, and the artistry left to the artist.
In 1989, Ward left television post production and studied Metal Arts at San Francisco State University. For seven years, she studied with Metal Arts teacher Dawn Nakanishi. Her jewelry was featured in stores and art galleries in the U.S. The work now includes cufflinks, pendants and necklaces and earrings. Ward’s designs were featured in a current running art show, VIRTUAL ART IN THE PARK in Petaluma California.
2020 and a world health crisis and all projects are on hold. With time to reconsider where the next wave of arts lovers will emerge, Ward is continuing to make affordable designs for clients who love her work.
I have a DONATION SERIES of kinetic sculptures that are sold with 50% of the sale price going to my favorite art and community groups. These sales are a way to get funding to my art community and keep this artist going.
Denise Ward has been designing jewelry since the 90’s. Her work is found in contemporary crafts galleries throughout the United States. Her work for the past two years has been concentrated in kinetic sculpture art.
KINETIC SCULPTURE
“This art form has given me a new expression, a view on freedom. It has been an interesting year, reflecting on the recent pandemic, the cultural explosion, revealed inequities, and how I can make relevant art that still speaks to my culture, my love of color and form, and the temperament of the world at this time. Finally, it is my art in motion that makes the work fun, a kinetic dance of color, wire and air.”
JEWELRY
Inspired by ancient designs, her work reflects jewelry from antiquity in a modern mood with bright colors and intriguing imagery. Working in mixed media, prevalently anodized aluminum, Ward uses color as a design motif and adding glass, stones, hardware store jewels, polymer clay and wire. Mixing anodized aluminum with many materials, she creates new work in a series of colorful earrings, bracelets, pendants, necklaces and cufflinks.
WardWorksArt has sold in these and many other locations: Petaluma Art Center, Hopscotch Gifts and Gallery, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art.
Unique Designs
All jewelry and kinetic sculptures are handcrafted, one-of-a-kind designs. Sketching the designs has always set the projects into motion.
I play in themes – Jellyfish, Mermaids, African Shields, Ginkgo motifs, Ganesha, Infinity, Asian gardens, Ndebele houses, heroic women of our times, and musical musings dedicated to my favorite musical artists. A favorite collection is an homage to artist Gustav Klimt called, "Gustav Klimt, I Love You", and new in 2020, WARRIORS, WITCHES AND WOMEN, a group of designs dedicated to the women who lift me and keep me strong.
“The Music of Cufflinks”, the new cufflinks created for The Kennedy Center in D.C. in 2018. The work is so different, jewelry for men? Finally! Women can wear these too. I’m working on series I call the “Wilma Rocks”, big colorful slabs of poly clay in a necklace design with anodized aluminum wire and other elements.
Kinetic sculptures are my new passion. I taught the Calder inspired designs to students in the schools and art camps the last five years. Now I am enjoying this art process. I love designing for site specific work, and your home can be a fine place to have art in motion.
Materials and Process
Using anodized aluminum and mixed materials, earrings are cut, formed, stamped and shaped into playful designs. Cold form work is what I do, using saws and files without fire to produce my jewelry. A bit of heat is used in the polymer clay designs for pendants, brooches, and cufflinks. The kinetic sculptures are constructed in sheet metals: zinc, copper, brass, aluminum, steel wire and acrylic paint.
Working my office (in good weather), is on our redwood deck, in a small town, in Northern California. This is where you'll find me most days. We live in Petaluma, California.
Hypoallergenic
I use niobium earring wires, so even the most metal sensitive can wear my designs. Nb, niobium #41 on the Periodic Table of Elements. The ear wires I use are made with niobium, and posts are titanium and are hypoallergenic. They do not contain any nickel alloys, so they are safe for anyone to wear. Please let me know if you wish clip ons for earrings, these are also available.
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