Thesis Jewelry Exhibition ‘avant-garde’ while remaining ‘wearable’

When looking into an artist’s work one may wonder of all of the inspirations that it took to create such a piece or who the artist wanted to inspire by creating the work of art.

For Erin Knisley (graduate student, master of fine arts), she hopes to inspire not only other artists but all students to be creative and to find their own passions.  

“If I can inspire them to continue to be creative and encourage them to push their own ideas past what they think they can achieve,” Knisley said, “then I guess that’s really my goal.”

To complete the MFA program each graduate student must have their own personal exhibition where they showcase the pieces that they have been working on.

Knisley’s MFA Thesis Jewelry Exhibition will be Tuesday to Friday in the Kipp Gallery in Sprowls Hall.  

Her work’s focus is on jewelry and metals, and she says she looked at architectural structures when coming up with ideas for the collection.  

“It is very much about building from multiple parts,” Knisley said. “It’s the idea of building with repetition these multiple parts to create larger, more experimental pieces that go beyond the commercial definition of wear-ability.”

She gets her inspirations from metal work such as Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, whose focus is in wire-framed pieces and bridges, and Korean metal smith Dukno Yoon.

Knisley describes her pieces as “non-objective as opposed to narrative,” which means that the pieces focus more on the structure and design as opposed to them telling a story.

“It’s not your grandmother’s jewelry, that’s for sure,” said Knisley jokingly.  She described her work as more avant-garde and “runway-jewelry inspired.”

The collection will feature about 20 pieces of jewelry that includes necklaces, broaches and rings.  Everything in the collection is meant to be worn, according to Knisley, even if it does not appear to be.

 “Some of them don’t seem wearable at all from how they’re going to be displayed,” Knisley said, “but everything in the show is 100 percent wearable.”

Knisley spent a year and a half working and completing all of the pieces for this week’s exhibition, and although some of the pieces may go on sale, a select few are too close to her heart. 

“I spent the most time on them or they were my brain child that I loved the most,” Knisley said.

Knisley encourages a wide variety of people to attend the show so that they can take away from it something that may motivate them personally.   

 “I’d like them to get inspired,” Knisley said, “to see the beauty or look at things a different way in their own life in going about their classes and to help inspire creativity in general in everyone.”

She said that for her, it is not about receiving praise or compliments.

“I enjoy making beautiful objects, and I wanna share them with people. I’m personally fulfilled by making the pieces.”