German artist Gésine Hackenberg creates elegant pieces of jewelry out from antique ceramic plates, dishes, and bowls. But how did she do it? The creative jewelry artist drills into secondhand ceramic wares and takes the small discs to form the jewelry. Hackenberg calls her creation ceramic jewelry and each piece looks like something we’ve never seen before.
The artist takes advantage of the ceramic’s authentic design by extracting the decorative details. She then strings the small discs together like beads to form necklaces. For rings and earrings, she inlays the drilled pieces with metal to achieve a lustrous finish. The ceramic jewelry pieces are so exquisitely crafted that anyone would never think that they’re made from secondhand dinnerware.
Hackenberg was initially trained as a goldsmith. Her passion for jewelry led her to take up a jewelry design course in Germany. After which, she moved to Amsterdam worked as an independent jeweler. But the classic parameters of crafting jewelry got her bored. So, she started to think outside the box and tried looking for other unconventional materials. The idea of ceramic jewelry came to her when she saw some lovely dinnerware from a secondhand shop. Is it possible to cut up the dishes and use the pieces as beads for jewelry pieces? And that’s when she began to experiment on the idea.
She’s using a manual drilling machine to extract the small discs from the earthenware. Using the pieces as beads, she transforms them into wearable pieces of jewelry that exude beauty and elegance. Take a look at her sophisticated ceramic jewelry creations below.
Hackenberg uses a manual drilling machine to extract small discs from antique dinnerware and uses them to form ceramic jewelry
Source: Gesine Hackenberg