Treasures for body and mind

20 July, 2011

Would You Wear Dead Bugs?

Marta Mattsson designs jewelry that pushes people's buttons.  The jewels she designed in college focused on curing people of their phobias and closely exposed people to the things that scared them-necklaces made of eels and earrings made from polished fingernail clippings were examples of her work. 

Her current collections are also disturbing.  Her leather items have kept their hair; cubic zirconia sparkles from the abdomens of beetles.  Some of her pieces feature fetal/baby mice.  She also uses taxidermied animals. 
Goatskin brooch
 
Copper electroformed beetle and CZ brooch
I don't want to touch these, much less wear them.  I wear leather all of the time, almost every day.  How does a hairy brooch change the medium from familiar to gross?  Beetles and bugs do not bother me but bisected bugs stuffed with gemstones do.  These items make me wonder unkindly about the jeweler and those who wear them.  "Morticia? Is it you?"  Do they cross a boundary of acceptable uses for the dead, even dead animals, indicating a possibly unhealthy misalignment with societal taboos by the artist and her patrons, or are they simply aesthetically gross? 





     
  

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I go with the simply gross thought...blech! Mona

Anonymous said...

Feel free to ask me any questions about my collections, they have loads of research put into them and are absolutely not made to just be gross and provoking.Wearing dead creatures is nothing new,its been done for centuries.Email me if you want to have a further discussion.

/Märta

arcaneox said...

Cool! Marta, I'll be getting in touch asap! Thank you for your response! Readers- I'll be getting in touch with her, but is there anything you would like to ask her and have included in the blog?