Inspiration & Travel
Art is at the core of Rachel’s motivation. While she enjoys visiting traveling exhibitions of rare and unique pieces, her true driving force is provided by a handful of artists she looks to for constant inspiration. Doug Cator, a professional jeweler and Rachel’s mentor, is a daily source of inspiration for the young designer. He has opened up a world of metal smithing, wax carving and stone setting to her, helping her hone in on these skills and begin to develop them. Other contemporary, less-personal influences include Michael Parkes and H.R. Giger, hailing from the school of surrealist and abstract art, where her true passion lies. Her delicate, detail-oriented designs exhibit a leaning towards abstract impressionism. She is intrigued by Dadaism and the works of Marcel Duchamp, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and Mark Rothko, and admires the original modern abstract works of Wassily Kandinsky, Dada’s predecessor.
Her fondness of the avant-garde, in Rachel’s ever-broadening taste spectrum, has instilled in her a tendency to appreciate less-conventional forms of expression. She looks to architecture for inspiration from the colors, textures, and the shape of the structure in her product development. Graffiti also stirs her creativity. She values its “pure” quality and accepts it as a form of expression, deeming it an “underrated” art form due to the stigma that it receives in the context of vandalism. Graffiti, when it is done right and presented in a way that is acceptable, provides Rachel with ideas and realizations she is moved to actualize through her own mediums.
Since her experience is in fashion design she is very much affected by fashion, fabric, and the way garments move. Her skills and understanding of draping fabric and metals are further developed through the visuals she obtains from various eras. This is why film is also a motivating force in her designs. She loves the style of the silver screen and prefers movies from the forties and seventies; her current favorites are La Vie en rose, Casablanca, Chinatown and Gilda. Her recent influences can be seen in the design of her newer pieces, in which she drapes chains and works with designs through draping.
In addition to external forces, the materials with which she works influence the outcome of her designs, as well. The materials with which she is drawn to work and the colors of the gemstones are a huge influence. She has the vision to design a collection around one stone. She prefers dark, rich stones such as black garnet and black diamonds. Not only are they ideal core materials, with their absence of color and eye-catching sparkle, but they are super inexpensive – yet so stunning and brilliant.
Rachel’s current designs are inspired by South American culture. The asymmetry in the way jewelry is worn, such as the two different earrings worn by people in Brazil and Argentina, have encouraged her to create similar styles for her collection. This is the motivation behind designing each piece with slight variations. The uniqueness of each piece is not so much created on purpose but is rather a result of the type of designing she does. Each piece of metal is wrapped and manipulated in a way that it has its own unique expression. The necklaces and earrings she produces are asymmetric to create an interest in the length, proportion and drape. The pieces hang in a way that the center point is skewed to either side, which creates a unique way of looking at jewelry.
