Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
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54 ORNAMENT 35.5.2012 The connection to nature was obvious. But, inset on the upper left were two other bracelets, also continuous coils of green and yellow tones, but fashioned from anodized aluminum. These two simple groupings show an overarching connection in Donald's aesthetic, one that rises above material differences. The disparity in their properties is easily apparent, yet together the two pairs of bracelets feel like a part of a larger whole. This interesting marriage of opposites, the dichotomy of natural and synthetic, delicate and rigid, permanent and ephemeral breathes life into Donald's jewelry, adding something intangible but powerful beyond the mere decorative qualities. Eventually, Donald decided to expand her metalsmithing skills, enrolling in classes with noted jewelers Jeff Georgantes, Kris Patzlaff and David LaPlantz. It was LaPlantz who introduced Donald to what would become a major component in her jewelry career—the use of plastics, and more specifically, carving, dyeing and experimenting with them. Like the painted jewelry, Donald was immediately drawn to the process. "I think initially there was the carving that intrigued me but also the translucency. I love that about the plastics." Her interest also went beyond the material characteristics to something more significant and meaningful. "Plastics are very affordable and I realized very early that they were a waste material," says Donald. Environmental activism was a large part of Donald's reality in Northern California, where she had friends involved in various ecological organizations and efforts, including one who worked in waste management. "There were always conversations about how much waste we produce. I was really, really aware of it; so I was going back and forth between making jewelry out of leaves and twigs and things I would find in the woods on my walks and so forth, to making work out of garbage and waste materials. Plastics are just ubiquitous in our culture and are so cheap that we just throw them away. We treat them, well, like garbage." Donald continued her studio art and jewelry, making connections in the small town and putting together an arts program for the local school—one of her first introductions to teaching, a career-long tangent to her own work. Despite her love geographically for the area, after seven years Donald's more "urban rhythms" were calling, and she applied to graduate programs in jewelry and metals, settling on the reputable department at San Diego State University. There, she studied under Arline Fisch and Helen Shirk, also taking electives like woodworking. She furthered the kind of material investigations that had been so crucial to her earlier artistic path—playing with color on plastics and sourcing other random materials from scrap bins at industrial outfits—setting the course for her future work. "Those little scraps are not something many people can use, but as a jeweler, I can make something out of a really small piece. I love the idea of taking what's virtually a UNTITLED BRACELET of mixed plastics, oxidized silver; 8.9 x 11.4 x 11.4 centimeters, 2010.