Book Report: Modern Jewelry from Modular Parts by Martha Le Van (2007)

Book coverThis book is pretty much what it says. It uses a lot of hardware store equipment, including thin rods, pipes, washers, and stamped metal to create necklaces, rings, brooches, and ear rings. It’s very similar to Kilobyte Couture in that regard. However, the projects in this book are more targeted to serious designers and very artistic pursuits indeed. One of the project includes small balls made of gold, which in this day and age would make for a very pricey piece of jewelry.

42 pages of the book are given over to tools and to techniques, which includes a lot of metalworking material, including a brief primer on soldering. It’s been a while since I’ve watched an episode of That’s Clever which often featured metal working, but it was a review for me because of that. Not that I’ve ever soldered anything, although I do own two soldering irons. Just in case, you know. Back to my point: This ain’t beading, Grandma. This is Jewelry Design. And Fabrication.

The rest of the book is given to some projects, and in addition to the projects, the book presents photos of other pieces throughout the text, so you can really get a maximum of ideas from the book. But the style of jewelry is too industrial for my taste. So I probably won’t try anything out from within the book. Because I wouldn’t want to ruin the collectibility and resale value of my soldering irons.

Books mentioned in this review:

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