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Jewelry by Matt updated website:

www.jewelrybymatt.com

Jewelry by Matt Back to Roots

The natural, untreated beauty of fine materials will always speak to those who listen.

 Pyrite disks on Greek leather.

 Hand drilled turquoise cabochons on various cords.

 Tiger's Eye disks on Greek leather

 Hand drilled jasper-hematite on waxed cotton cord.

 Hand drilled jasper-hematite on waxed cotton cord (detail).

 Antique Indian brocade pendants on coated aluminum chains.

 Antique Indian brocade pendants on coated aluminum chains.

 Rock crystal rosary style necklaces on brass wire.

 Rock crystal rosary style necklace on brass wire.

 Black spinel rosary style necklace on blackened brass wire.

 Black spinel rosary style necklaces on blackened brass wire.

 Mixed pyrite with African porcupine quill pendant.

 Hand drilled black tourmaline crystal with black tourmaline beads necklace.

 Hand drilled black tourmaline crystal with black tourmaline beads necklace (detail).

 Hand drilled black tourmaline crystal with black tourmaline beads necklaces.

 Hand drilled black tourmaline crystal with black tourmaline beads necklaces (detail).

 Hand drilled pyrite cabochons with lapis-lazuli embroidered on antique Laoation brocade cuffs.

Hand drilled pyrite pebbles embroidered on camouflage cuffs.

Waxing Poetics

amer, amer,
 

emergency
to arms to your
mouth fadeless an
amaranth mine
tastes alkaline
a torch-thistle
set to discharge
as your wooden
interior
to my wonder
oozes
liquidity
 
at the eatery
gold gold
ubiquitously
spread like butter
to kept places
wrists, throats, and then
flinty glances
ultimately
telling me of
another life,
another life,
not one my own

After the Play

we emerge from the peculiarly

stifled pink velvets and curtains,

at this hour the late spring downpour’s

dispersed the gawking throngs and

you, out from under a neon awning,

unhesitatingly step off the curb

into a vivid future, breaking to

a sprint in your talon-clawed boots to

dodge the drops and I,

like it or not, do the same.

The next morning the lilacs,

still drunk on rain

beckoned to me

leeringly from their corner in the courtyard.

Your elflocks

dance a teapot’s chatter,

or, in thinly brushed tea rose dreams,

down with the cheek-suckers

and brow thumbers,

content with those accessories.

I’m dusting a God shelf:

counting my selves, two by one

fingers in mouth.

You dawdle on a polygon’s wobble,

tip to tip, when animated,

or, masked backwards,

at least for appearances.

You wear that ignorant ring.

You cross my palm.

 You who would rhyme haikus.

Undone

 That single night we

cuddled up like walnuts in a shell, and

I woke you when you cried out,

just like in books.

That one morning our light was served up on

big fat paper plates and you smiled at me

on the train near the sea, lifting

a lash off my cheek in front of everyone.

I thought you

rare as the

scent of pine smoke in the city;

odd as manners in doorways,

or a pure red in the woods.

Now I wonder:

Is this yellowing

lampshade of derision

that same burning tiara

whose flames

I thought

you would touch your

tongue wetted fingertips to?

In place of that,

you pinched me out

like a flaming wire sparkler

dropped by a child

into water.

And this has happened before

Oh, where is the way,

how does this go —

When can I start singing?

Crooked within, a maladjusted hook,

slantwise, arising, amounting to this:

I’m the Delphi oracle,

you’re week old weather.

I’m warp, weft, and woof,

you’re a dropped stitch,

Unable to pick up,

like flung mustard seeds,

melting ice-cubes, cactus.

Branches strive through fences,

even in tempests,

tricks make me laugh,

lances in our sums of pretense.

You hair-shirt!

You — cut points off from cardboard stars.

        75-80

The current of wire

switches tracks electrically,

busts over the aorta and

overrides an atrium.

Just let me lay down on the 3^rd rail,

it rams clammily

through a flushed

face mercifully

hidden via the grace of

technologies.

Now look—

this morning right here was my house of conviction:

this evening’s straw bits of trumpery strewn away

just as the last light of winter dappled the Hudson

into watery Appaloosas

that would I please you to see.

I suck the brass teat.

I am the factory rex,

so conscious of mechanics that

I perceive fiery processes in one leap,

I try to accommodate the

king of munitions by

staging nonstop pirouettes.

What has passed?

I am led like water

as though

to a holy grave;

we travel by sea and

you negotiate my selves

into fourth world countries

in whose climes

the souls of 

toiling locals are furrowed

with the laughter of

trusting fools.

              On Atzecan Night

Now is the finish of day one,

the being of the evening sky,

here is the moon, and there was the sun,

wasted from its noon day destruction.

The wake calms and happens in

after the bank dries, while

beside us rain rests beneath 

shrouds of petals as

the raven, its mission intense,

flies over the deep waters.

We are

drawn nigh to the night song,

to the talons of the owl,

to the tree frog since

daily beneath flesh bones whiten and

nightly those bones stiffen anticipating

fissured skins, colored echoes.

So here is Electra and there is Atlas and

this is the being of the night sky that backs

the spider spinning her threads to

weave her children’s cauls.

This is the end to day one with

head to the east,

hands to the south knowing

the fish is in his pool,

the snake’s skin’s shod

in her hollow,

the hummingbird’s nested, even as

corn swells in

a slender pod.

We know—

the priest has blackened,

his face to become

the red and yellow bisect of the sun.

Late, in stillness above us an instant hovers,

below us our dreaming stays,  

and our hearts beat of their own accord.

Jewelry by Matt : The Synthetic Impulse

The Synthetic Impulse is the drive to juxtopose materials that are not naturally found together. The psychic aural tonality of the Synthetic Impulse concerns a higher frequency; a dog whistle, it is crystalline in structure, geometriczed as opposed to an undulating form.

Under normal circumstances the combination of rubber and metal studs is found only within fetishistic objects relating to sadomasochistic sexuality. Jewelry by Matt reasseses the relationship between rubber/metal and plastic/crystal to uncover entirely new frontiers of material relationships that go beyond previous boundaries of 'jewelry'. Here the combination of rubber and metal studs is elevated from a master/slave dichotomy to harmonious and friendly new reality of childish wonderment and joyful glee.

The colors and materials of the modern era stand in stark contrast to hues and elements that did not exist previously. Newly synthesized color pigments began to emerge during  the second half of the 19th century. Luminous and flourescent pigments did not exist until the 20th century. The growth of plastics grew out of the explorations of industrial chemistry. It is easy to imagine then the 19th century in those hues and tones of colors that were also found in nature. Perhaps that is why women were often thought of in pastel and scondary tones while men were thought of in primary hues. In fact, the concept of a color that was not also found in nature probably did not exist until the onset of psychedelic and psychotropic substances much later.

How is the psychedelic experience manifested in a physical object? The word 'psychedelic' means to make the soul manifest, that is, put simply another way, to alter one's normative perceptions. This process can be brought about via the use of psychoactive pharmeceuticals as well as through excercise, mediation, prayer, or other spiritual and physical activities. In this instance with Jewelry by Matt the separate materials of super balls, metals studs and Swarovski crystals are not particularly unusual or rare of themselves, but when combined together create something entirely new and hitherto unseen, and thus are reflective of the psychedelic experience. 

It was the Surrealists who discovered that the combination of distant and unrelated parts could lead to the creation of a powerful and often poetic image. Jewelry by Matt recognizes this relationship of startling juxtopositions  and its poetic forcefulness, but moves beyond its traditional boundaries by discovering illogical, new and dynamic imageries within the melding of ordinary objects.

It is the inherent tension between materials that gives rise to their sense of power.Normally these materials would not be found together, but when combined they seem to be suspended in a state of harmonious preservation. Like the dynamic tension of a magnetic forcefield pushing and pulling at opposite poles, these pieces exist in a visual state of continual push/pull and remain suspended in a continuous dialectical relationship. What we have then is the object, its contradiction, and then with the final synthesis of the two we stumble upon their visual and tactile liberation.

Jewelry by Matt One-of-a-Kind Items

Jewelry by Matt Treasure Trove

        In an era consumed by the immediacy and crassness of mass production one-of-a-kind hand made pieces of jewelry guarantee a sense of integrity and depth to one's self. The hand made object rejects the confines of corporate dictates as it has no exact duplicate and therefore it eliminates any notion of mass produced profit. It categorically denies the motions of modern day commercial manufacturing and it is in a sense a throw back to an earlier epoch. In its own way the hand made one-of-a-kind object is a protest against the dehumaniztion of mass manufacturing while at the same time it is a validation of the continued relevance of making things by hand.

Hand carved ebony pendant with antique Japanese silk cord

       Jewelry with overt references to other cultures and periods are at times merely an accident of production, this I believe is an argumeent for the commonality of the shared consciousness of all peoples.

Hand carved ebony pendant with antique Japanese silk cord

 This piece began as an oddly shaped spare piece of ebony that had sat on my wood shelf for over a year. Ebony is an absolutely magical material, and my favorite precious wood. It has a warmth depth, and a pliability unmatched by almost any other natural substance. With this particular piece of ebony I just decided that I would work with the shape that already was there, but then guiding it into something more sinuous and  soft. As it began to take on a sort of semi bell shape I began to see it as a massive pendant. Then I rememebered a piece of antique Japanese kumihimo I had and, voila, my new pendant.

Hand carved ebony pendant with antique Japanese cord

Hand carved raw beads of ebony, rosewood and wenge wood with han made amethyst drop and rock crystals

        Sometimes it is a challenge to not treat the wood, but rather just to leave it in its natural state. Commercially this is little understood and pretty unpopular, but I don't care.

Hand finished deer antler with rock crystals

        Jewelry by Matt relishes dichotomies. At first glance the combination of these two materials, rock crystal and deer antler, seems, well, completely wrong! But yet, aren't these two materials completely natural? Rock crystal is silicon dioxide, deer antlers are a mixture of dry matter and minerals, proteins and other organic compounds. One is produced from the earth, one is produced from the head of an animal. Both occur naturally in predictably unpredictable shapes. While one comes from the earth the other will be returned to the earth upon shedding, breaking or death. The juxtoposition of the two is intended to provoke a surprised reaction, and it often does just that.

Black jade with rock crystal

       There is always a conversation between darkness and light, shadow and light, light and dark, light and blackness, light and murkiness. While the meaning of light in this context stays consistent, the forms of of the words meaning darkness are ever changing, just as in life. Black jade is a very heavy stone, and has a very specific gravity, which is to say it is  dense and so it has weight. I love the pairing of the two as symbolic of a life experience, there is always a light somewhere after the darkness.

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       This form of green mixed with the copper always somehow reminds me of the oxidized copper roof tops one sometimes still sees in the city, and I love the green tones placed against the density of the ebony wood. 
    

Massive antique Venetian beads with antique Ethiopian cross and macreme leather cord


When I was small boy I used to visit someone who lived down the street from a combination Bead/Head/Record shop. To this day I have no idea what a Head/Bead/Record store was doing there, in that particular place in that particular town, but there it was. Next to the multitudes of giant hand blown glass bongs (the kind you never see in real life, except in Head Shops) and underneath the Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin posters on the wall they had a wooden tray with compartments, like you still see today in some places, and at this particular bead shop they sold Venetian glass beads. I don't rememeber how much their cost was, but I do rememeber that they were expensive, like very expensive, and I never had any money to buy even one single piece. This was around 1978 and there was a kind of hippie girl who worked there and she was always very kind to me. I don't remember what we talked about but I remember she was very nice and patient. I don't know why I had such a fascination with these kinds of beads. Maybe it was their mixture of colors, their weight, or maybe it was just the fact that I couldn't afford any but really really wanted them. As an adult I have developed a totally new appreciation for the Venetian bead, I have come to know about their history, their uses over the years and even the proccess of how they are made. But, I have never lost my boyhood wonder and fascination with them. And I can honestly say that this is one of the few things left in the world bout which that feeling still remains.

Antique Tibetan agate with rudruksha seed beads and wood

There is nothing like wearing an agate. This agate was carved in the 19th century. It is very large and of a color and striation that are very rare. While the spritual aspects of this piece are obvious, it is also meant to hold allusions to the past.

Hand carved ebony and antique silver dollar drop with ebony and pine wood beads

Who doesn't love sterling silver and ebony? It's the Reeces of the jewelry world, no? I love this coin's carving, a Morgan silver dollar from the 1800's. It has a great weight, and even by itself without the beads it has a great weight and substantiality.

Black tourmaline crystal with navy blue sunstone beads

Hand craved rock crystal with tourquoise and coral

Turquoise is one of my all time favorite stones.

Mixed pyrite beads with African porcupine quill

Ruby slice, deer antler, hand carved ebony wrench pendant and hand carved ebony keyhole pendant

 I love simple amuletic pieces that bring to mind nature, as well as other times and cultures. They look best layered and mixed with other pieces of jewelry. They are the kind of pieces that when worn you notice them AND the person that is wearing them. They work well on a strong personality, and usually an interesting and artistic one.