Alicia Piller’s sculptural jewellery is otherworldly

“Oooh, look at this trash!”

Alicia Piller was giddily flitting round her Inglewood live-work studio holding up resin-coated balls of detritus, exhibiting off tiny fossil fragments, and pulling out plastic trays full of random thingamajigs that had been organized by colour.

The assortment is all a part of her eclectic jewelry-making arsenal. She clusters recycled textiles, discovered gadgets, donated castoffs and gem stones to create handmade wearable artwork that she describes as “science bohemian.”

In this sequence, we spotlight impartial makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who’re creating authentic merchandise in and round Los Angeles.

Piller juxtaposes opals, garnets and pearls with much less standard supplies similar to tile fragments, snakeskin, bits of lava from a visit to Iceland, and bullet casings, all certain along with strips of leather-based or vinyl. Lately, she’s been working with 3-D printed waste that her associates, a pair of costume-based performance artists, began delivering to her in big rubbish luggage.

“I am always thinking about some aspect of recycling,” she stated, “seeing the value in these things that we deem ‘trash.’”

One wall of her studio is lined with metallic racks stacked with bins and containers labeled “clay,” “metal” and “scraps.” The room is cluttered, but curated.

“There’s a little bit of hoarding mentality,” Piller laughed, “but I use it!”

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1. Necklaces that includes seashells, gem stones and recycled printed plastic. 2. Alicia Piller shows her handmade ring. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

From her “controlled chaos” come intricate, ornate, one-of-a-kind necklaces, earrings, brooches and rings. While Etsy is her predominant retail hub, she beforehand bought her wearables at L.A.’s Craft Contemporary museum and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. She’s additionally offered aptitude for the likes of Phylicia Rashad, Jill Scott and Ciara.

Her creations give nods to nature, at occasions skew extraterrestrial, and have Afro-futuristic undertones. One pendant evokes the ocean with its swirl of mother-of-pearl, spiral seashells and rivulets of pale grey leather-based organized above a bit of bleached coral. A crystal-festooned collar necklace calls to thoughts a pair of Blue Morpho butterfly wings. And a jasper-studded pin resembles a Ghanaian masks at first look.

The undulating layers and microcosms that make up her jewellery’s signature “biomorphic” look lengthen into her superb artwork apply, as nicely.

Piller obtained an MFA from Cal Arts and now teaches sculpture as an adjunct professor at UCLA and UC Irvine. Her maximalist mixed-media artwork has proven at Track 16 (the L.A. gallery that represents her), in addition to establishments throughout Southern California, together with the Brick and the Orange County Museum of Art. Both the Hammer Museum and the California African American Museum have her items of their everlasting collections. Next summer season, she’ll unveil a brand new monument as a part of West Hollywood’s Art on the Outside public artwork program.

In her studio, a number of towering sculptures are ensconced in cardboard and bubble wrap, whereas others — works in progress — sit on plinths, lean towards partitions, or grasp from the ceiling. There’s a stark distinction between these 9-foot-tall items and her smallest makes, a pair of one-inch submit earrings. But toggling from the huge to the minute comes naturally to her.

Alicia Piller stands for a portrait in her studio.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s about the microscopic and the macro,” she defined. “I like being able to see the tiniest detail, then letting it expand out into the cosmos. I’m thinking about those two scales constantly and about where we fit between those scales.”

While she addresses such weighty subjects as police brutality and local weather disasters in her large-scale works, making wearables offers consolation.

“The jewelry is much more free-form and fun versus the more serious stuff that feels heavy to me,” she stated. “It’s not always full of activism and all these ideas about humanity and the world. It’s more of a joyous, less stressful task.”

She added, “I also just love to adorn myself in the things that I make.”

This has been true since childhood.

During the studio tour, the artist pulled out a bit of brass wire bent to spell out her title, a memento from when she was 12. She’s saved all method of adolescent mementos, similar to beads she long-established out of tightly-rolled journal pages or colourful items of clay. Her future as an artisan was a foregone conclusion.

Photos of Piller’s maternal ancestors line the perimeters of this textural necklace, which includes a pair of beetles at its heart.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Growing up in Chicago, Piller and her mom carried out as clowns at birthdays and firm picnics. From ages 7 to 14, it was her job to create balloon figures for partygoers — sculpting expertise that might come in useful. She gained an appreciation for nature and anthropology from mother-daughter fishing excursions and common visits to the Field Museum, which focuses on pure historical past. Her affinity for biology comes from her father, who attended medical college when she was younger.

“I had all these books around me that had the insides of bodies,” she recalled, “so there was a fascination with the inside.”

Piller went on to review anthropology and portray at Rutgers University, making jewellery in her spare time. During breaks, she’d work at a Chicago bead retailer, the place she discovered about international jewelry-making practices. After graduating in 2004, she moved to Manhattan, spending weekends hawking equipment and painted by hand clothes from a sidewalk desk. She later relocated to Santa Fe, N.M., the place she labored at a retailer promoting fossils, minerals and semi-precious stones.

“That’s when I really understood that in all these materials there’s a spiritual side, an energy,” she stated. “There’s a beauty in the fusion of all of these materials together.”

Piller moved to Inglewood in 2019. Asked if L.A. has impacted her work the best way earlier cities had, she stated, “[My] storytelling, narrative side has come to the forefront. There’s definitely been a shift, in terms of thinking about how an object can tell a story.”

For instance, enamored of Pasadena-born writer Octavia Butler, she started referencing the sci-fi legend’s writing and utilizing her likeness, each in sculptural type (as together with her 2024 piece “Mission Control. Earthseed.”) and in her jewelry. She additionally began incorporating pictures of different inspiring girls, together with her maternal forebears and the Cuban American sculptor Ana Mendieta.

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1. Earrings that includes science fiction writer Octavia Butler, one in all Piller’s many inspirations. 2. A necklace constructed from a crinoid fossil stem. 3. Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta sits on the heart of those necklaces. (Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

L.A. has formed her aesthetic in additional literal methods, too.

“A big part of what I do is walking and doing urban hikes,” she stated, noting that she’s trekked via almost 20 international locations. She’s walked from her studio to Watts Towers or westward to Torrance, accumulating issues she finds on the bottom alongside the best way and ultimately reworking them. For occasion, a pair of jewel-toned beetles she picked up made a super centerpiece for a regal bib necklace.

“There’s that side of me that really gets excited about looking at those objects, then creating my own sort of cosmology, my own artifacts, if you will,” she stated. “I’m using ‘high’ gemstones to ‘low’ plastic and elevating all of them, fusing them into one work that then creates this energy, this power.”