Tyvek Jewelry by Carol-lynn Swol

Carol-lynn Swol is a Tyvek jewelry artist and the first guest poster on the Tyvek Innovative Uses blog. Visit her website at www.carollynnswol.com to see more of her work. Ms. Swol provides this statement on her work with Tyvek:

In creating jewelry, material and the passion for material manipulation help drive my creative process. This passion led me to begin making pieces with Tyvek, which feels as delicate as paper, but is far more durable. It is in the duality of this material that I yearn to find a sophisticated balance between durability and ephemeral-seeming and between intentionality and spontaneity in design and form. Restricting these pieces to texture and form, I have thermal-kiss cut, tufted, and stacked the Tyvek to strive toward producing a visually arresting and sensual effect.

My work with Tyvek was originally inspired by my love of books and the feel of paper. I have used dyed Tyvek, and more recently, plain white Tyvek. More so than the dyed Tyvek, the white seems like the paper we encounter every day, bringing my recent work closer to the original inspiration that led me to this material. In their stark whiteness, these pieces seem to be made of stacks of the cleanest paper possible.

In earlier work, I stacked dyed pieces of Tyvek to produce layered patterns that looked like colorful, organic forms. The muted colors had great variety due to different shades of dye and because of shadows created by the undulations along the surface of the pieces. The newer pieces, using bright white Tyvek, restrict the work to texture and form. This creates a challenge, but it also produces an arresting effect, both more minimalist and somehow more sensual.

Many thanks to Carol-lynn for providing this guest blog post and for being a Material Concepts customer. Images used here with permission, copyright Carol-lynn Swol.