Niche Award Redux

Jeffrey Lloyd Dever, Summer’s Opulence, 2008
5.25″w x D 3.75″d x H 1.5″h, polymer, various wire

Jeff Dever’s lush bracelet, Summer’s Opulence, will also vie for a 2009 Niche award.

Here’s what Jeff recently wrote about this pieces:

“This bracelet, “Summer’s Opulence,” evokes memories of the New England fields and woodlands I wandered every summer as a child. The sheer abundance and variety of the seasons flora enchanted me. I’ve explored these notions before in vessels and sculptural baskets, and to a degree in jewelry, but this bracelet was a departure for me. The piece is a sprung coil bracelet where the stems of all the berries and seeds are wire wrapped and secured.
The challenge was to create the leafy branches, which cap the ends of the coil, strong enough by building them over reinforced armatures, one of my signature techniques. As always the fun is in the challenges the piece poses technically and aesthetically.”

Photograph: Gregory R. Staley