CALIFORNIA DESIGNERS : Objets d’Artisans : The Jewelry Designs That Are Making News Are One-of-a-Kind Pieces of Miniature Art

THEY BEND wire, pound silver, shape gold and set diamonds. Some dig for treasure in hardware bins and junk shops.

Others fashion eccentric pieces for clients who demand anonymity. All work in isolation, developing styles free of one another’s influence.

In converted garages, downtown lofts and back bedrooms, Southern California’s one-of-a-kind jewelry designers are creating striking and singular pieces that are more like artwork than decoration: spear-like brooches that appear to have washed up on shore, hand-woven silver bracelets festooned with marbles, textured-gold hairpins resembling bridge abutments.

Southern California’s growing passion for wearable art is reflected in thriving galleries, enthusiastic collectors and the crowds that attend exhibits of new work. Local jewelers’ designs appear regularly on the ears, arms and bodices of actresses such as Mary Steenburgen, Carol Kane and Susan Sarandon, according to gallery owners.

“They know that I have things that are special,” says Jo Wilder, owner of Wilder Place on Melrose Avenue, a gallery featuring unique and unusual jewelry. “They come here looking for visual candy.”

Gallery owners agree that because the best one-of-a-kind jewelry stands as miniature sculpture, buying it is an attractive and affordable way to collect modern art.

Until recently, Southern California jewelers worked in the shadow of New York and Northwest artists, but that is changing. Consumers with an eagerness to embrace new ideas and money to spend have created a thriving demand for unique jewelry.

“L.A. has found its style, and it’s eclectic--anything goes,” says Carol Sauvion, owner of Freehand, an innovative West 3rd Street gallery specializing in one-of-a-kind arts and crafts.

Selected after interviews with dozens of jewelers, gallery owners and collectors, the six jewelers featured here reflect the amazing diversity of local talent. Their work ranges from sophisticated, sculptural brooches by Valerie Mitchell and Debra Stoner to Yves Kamioner’s classic gold-and-diamond pieces.

Between the avant-garde and the classical lie the whimsical marble-and-glass beaded bracelets and earrings of Diane Komater; the delicate, symbolic work of Melissa Tucker, and the Southwest-flavored creations of Ted Cavagnaro.

DIANE KOMATER

Diane Komater, a pixie-like former painter, shuns both gold and gems. Instead, she painstakingly wraps black or silver wire around beads and marbles to create bracelets that are a cross between opulent religious objects and ‘40s kitsch. The heavy bracelets bulge with deep-hued beads, some featuring faces or abstract swirls.

“I probably have the largest marble collection in the world,” says Komater with a laugh. The 33-year-old artist works in a tidy garage behind a neighbor’s apartment building east of the Fairfax area. Komater moved from Berkeley to Los Angeles about three years ago. She says she is not influenced by any other jewelers and is even reluctant to hire anyone to help her, fearing their ideas would spoil her work.

Beyond making the bracelets, earrings and brooches that are now selling well enough to pay the bills, Komater dreams of being a fine artist and “creating big, wire sculptures.”

Lois Lambert, director of Santa Monica’s Gallery of Functional Art, which sells Komater’s work, says Komater’s jewelry appeals to all kinds of collectors--”from the young and hip to the conservative.”

Komater’s bracelets sell for $200; earrings, about $65, at the Gallery of Functional Art, 2429 Main St., Santa Monica.

YVES KAMIONER

Yves Kamioner has perfected a design signature that he calls “the crack.” He creates fissures in gold and paves the openings with tiny diamonds nestled beneath the surface.

The Belgian-born third-generation jeweler recalls peeking out from behind the curtains in his family’s jewelry shop as a little boy, watching as his father bowed to kiss the hands of royal clients.

Kamioner, 33, rarely kisses his clients’ hands, but he willingly agrees to create anything they wish in precious metals and stones.

“When my client leaves the studio, I know exactly what she has in mind,” says Kamioner, whose pristine white studio features an illuminated showcase filled with his newest work.

Although he has designed 400 pieces for Tiffany and is currently working on a line of jewelry for the new Giorgio boutique in Beverly Hills, Kamioner still relishes the challenge of one-of-a-kind commissions.

In recent years, he has crafted a $34,000 miniature treasure chest filled with precious gems; a $12,000 brooch depicting the Los Angeles skyline in gold and diamonds, and a $100,000 gold cane encrusted with diamonds.

Kamioner’s clients, who buy his work through the Freehand gallery, 8413 West 3rd St., include the rich and famous, who order elaborate and expensive custom pieces, and a local judge who recently commissioned a set of elegant, intricately designed wedding bands.

MELISSA TUCKER

Melissa Tucker, 30, a motion picture makeup artist and self-taught jeweler from Sydney, Australia, crafts intricate pieces in sterling silver and copper. Many pieces feature rabbits (because her parents never let her have one as a pet) and fish, which she likes because they are “sleek and sculptural.”

“I want people to make no mistake that my work is about making a connection with the animals and the earth,” Tucker says.

In addition to 14-karat gold and sterling silver, Tucker uses accents of copper. Because she refuses to use ivory out of respect for elephants, she substitutes a type of milky white plastic. For special clients, she creates custom-made sculptures festooned with feathers and bits of bone and metal. The sculptures, which she started making as gifts for friends, serve as eye-catching brooch holders.

Tucker, who works in a back bedroom in a San Fernando Valley house, says some of her work was strongly influenced by a recent trip to Australia, where she met aboriginal elders and other representatives of tribal people.

Tucker’s clients, who include actresses Jodie Foster and Rae Dawn Chong, buy her work at Freehand, 8413 West 3rd St., or Wilder Place, 7975 1/2 Melrose Ave., both in Los Angeles. Earrings cost $90 to $120, and brooches sell for $140 to $165.

VALERIE MITCHELL

IN A downtown loft workshop that’s as tidy as a medical research lab, Valerie Mitchell creates abstract, avant-garde jewelry that’s inspired by architecture and sculptural forms as simple as a canoe. Her hair ornaments and brooches are reminiscent of bridge abutments, and in a new line of brooches, she fills the spaces between metal sections with lightweight cement. One unforgettable shoulder decoration resembles a kayak and is titled “Raft.”

“I try to apply three-dimensional, sculptural forms to my jewelry,” says Mitchell, a 34-year-old graduate of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. “My work also has an artifact quality, like objects that once had a usefulness, or things you might find in an old barn.”

Mitchell is an expert at electroforming, a process used to create hollow metal shapes that look heavy but feel light. She places a wax form in a chemical bath with copper bars, then runs an electrical current through the bath, which forces the metal to come off the bars and attach to the wax. The wax melts, leaving a copper shell.

For some pieces, Mitchell treats the metal with secret mixes of raw chemicals or enamels, creating antique-looking surfaces of henna, ocher and verdigris. For others, Mitchell covers sterling silver with 24-karat gold vermeil.

She divides her energy between creating limited-edition pieces for sale in more than 100 museums and shops and one-of-a-kind pieces for galleries and private collectors.

Novelists Isabel Allende and Martin Cruz Smith are among admirers who collect her work.

Mitchell’s sophisticated designs command a high price, with some brooches retailing for $600 or more. They are sold at M Gallery, 8649 Sunset Blvd., and Sculpture to Wear, 8441 Melrose Ave., both in Los Angeles.

DEBRA STONER

DEBRA STONER, 31, crafts weathered, dangerous-looking brooches in rusted steel and copper and primitive-looking bracelets that look as though they were found in an archeological dig. Often she uses ivory, pottery shards or glass she picked up on the beach.

Stoner, who is an artist-in-residence in the metals department of the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, went against the typical jeweler’s evolution from working with non-precious metals, such as copper and brass, to gold and silver. She received a master’s degree from San Diego State University’s art department, and began her career as a goldsmith and gallery manager in Davis, Calif.

“I have figured out that I can work in most any material,” says Stoner, who is going back to her goldsmith roots to design a new line.

“The material is not really the most important thing anymore,” she continues. “It is the design.”

Stoner’s top-of-the-line brooches and bracelets, which range in price from $150 to $240, are sold through the Gallery of Functional Art, 2429 Main St., Santa Monica.

TED CAVAGNARO

Ted Cavagnaro’s silversmithing is reminiscent of the traditional, heavy silver jewelry produced by Southwest American Indians.

Cavagnaro, 60, of Venice, is a self-taught artisan who adds his own flair to the silver that he hammers and forms with tools he makes himself.

His simple, uncontrived belt buckles and hammered silver beads are classic examples of the silversmith’s craft.

Although his work has a distinct Southwestern flavor, Cavagnaro says he was doing Southwestern-style jewelry long before the look became popular.

Cavagnaro fashions his silver pieces by hammering and bending, rarely soldering anything together.

“Jewelry making is a series of acquired skills,” says Cavagnaro, who spends most weekdays working in a tiny annex to his garage. “I am not a skilled draftsman or a great artist.”

In fact, Cavagnaro was a chemical engineer and photographer before he started melting silver coins and hammering them into various shapes about 13 years ago. Of the hundreds of pieces he’s produced, his favorite remains a sensuous strand of hand-stamped silver beads that he made years ago and is still reluctant to sell. His whimsical potato masher and whisk earrings are perennial favorites.

Most of Cavagnaro’s jewelry sells for under $200 and is available from his studio at 2241 Prospect Ave., Venice.