Blog
Arielle De Pinto
Shaking off fusty old-lady preconceptions of crochet, Canadian designer
Arielle De Pinto has been utilizing this ancient craft to devastating
effect in her delicate entanglements that treats silver and vermeil
metals almost as fibres to produce work that’s intricate and tactile at
the same time.
Why did you decide to use crochet and what effect were you trying to
achieve?
My background is in printmaking, which brought me to get really into
fibre work so that I could design patterns and be printing on a larger
scale. Immersed in that program at school, I became fixed on all these
very basic traditional techniques such as weaving, embroidery, and of
course crochet and knitting. One of the reasons I became good with
crochet and knitting in particular, is it required very little
equipment. I could do it at home, or on public transit. To this day I
still make jewellery in the subway, on planes, wherever. I started to
integrate metal into my work through general experimentation. I was set
on creating a fluid kind of fabric on it. I struggled with it for ages
until it started to work for me. I persisted partially because I was so
smitten with the texture and weight of what I was making. I am hardly
charmed by the tactility of my own work as I once was, but it is
amazing to see people's reaction to it upon first touch.
Is jewellery making personal for you?
The act of making anything is very personal, and especially putting it
out there for everyone to see, putting dollar value on it, and risking
failure. My work is so much about my own labour (or now, the labour of
my employees, whom I hold very dear). Without even thinking about
jewellery as heirloom, or jewellery as intimate object, every piece has
oils from our hands and probably a bunch of skin cells all over it. You
cannot get more personal than that.
Tell us about the masks - are they meant to disturb and provoke or
challenge ideas of beauty?
For this feature you asked me to include sketches and inspiration, I
rarely sketch, I usually just get an idea and go for it and work out
patterns afterward, which is why there are so many irregular pieces
hanging on the back of my door. Whenever I have scraps I put them
towards masks. And those are really where the inspiration for most of
my collection comes from. They are not meant to disturb, I have lots of
fun making them. Those are the most freestyle pieces, that's what makes
them inherently grotesque. They get requested all the time for press
but are so rarely used because they never really fit models how one
would think they are supposed to. I wouldn't say they are directly
meant to challenge ideas of beauty, but I am only inspired by
exaggerated facial features when it comes to making them. It is not so
much a statement against something as it is a celebration of something
else.
