The Ugly Necklace Contest
An annual
jewelry design competition with a twist
Click for:
2003 1st Annual
Entries
2004 2nd Annual Entries
2005 3rd Annual Entries
2006 4th Annual Entries
2007 5th Annual Entries
Summary of Adjusted Judges Scoring
Criteria
Entries, some Ugly, some not, to The Ugly
Necklace Contest -- You be the Judge!
It ain't easy doing UGLY!
Can you do better? -- Submit your entry to this year's contest
JOIN
our On-Line
Forum
Share your reactions, opinions
and thoughts about our Ugly Necklace entries,
or about the Contest as a whole.
Commentary
and Insights for Necklace Designers
What Past Participants Have Had
to Say
Press Release Announcing the 1st Annual Winners and Detailing Some History of The Contest
Our First Submission -- Can You Do Better?
ABOUT
THE JEWELRY DESIGN CRITERIA USED TO EVALUATE THE ENTRIES IN THE
UGLY NECKLACE CONTEST - It Ain't Easy Doing Ugly, or as my momma
says, "Ugly is as Ugly does."
ABOUT GOOD JEWELRY DESIGN
- Principles of Composition
by Warren Feld
ABOUT THE CONTEST...
Ugly Necklaces. You've seen them! Perhaps you've even worn them. Perhaps
you've been reluctant to tell someone that they were wearing an Ugly
Necklace. Perhaps you've hidden some of your own-designed Ugly Necklaces
somewhere in your bead room or closet. Perhaps someone you loved gave
you a very Ugly Necklace.
It’s difficult to design an ugly piece of jewelry because your mind and your eye won’t let you go there. As research into color and design has shown, your eye compensates for imbalances in color or design component relationships – it tries to correct and harmonize them. You are pre-wired to subconsciously avoid anything that is disorienting, disturbing or distracting. Because of this, any jewelry designer attempting to achieve Ugly, has to have enough control and discipline to override, perhaps overcome, intuitive, internally integrated principles of good design. The best jewelry designers will be very aware of what these rules of design are, and thus be able to strategically, not just intuitively, know how to manipulate and apply them.
The Ugly Necklace Contest is one of the programs of The Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, to encourage beadwork and jewelry makers to test their design skills, push the envelope, and learn some fundamentals about jewelry design in the process.
To achieve a truly hideous result means making the hard design choices:
- Can I push myself to use more yellow than the purple warrants, and
mix in some orange?
- Can I make the piece off-sided or disorienting, or not have a clear
beginning, middle or end?
- Can I disrupt my pattern in a way that, rather than “jazz”,
the result in fact, is “discordant”?
Adding to the fun, the piece of ugly jewelry each contestant created also had to be functional and wearable. This is what sets beadwork and jewelry design apart from other design arts. A piece of jewelry as art, (even ugly art), has to maintain its essence and purpose, even as the wearer moves, bends down, or rubs against things. Jewelry is art and architecture in motion, often frenetic motion. The pieces that make it up, and the techniques and designs which coherently interrelate these pieces must also anticipate this dynamic totality, as well. Otherwise, the piece of jewelry becomes a failure not only as a piece of jewelry, but of art, as well.
The Ugly Necklace Contest is an arena for budding and established beadwork and jewelry designers to strut their stuff – to show how adept they are at creating ugly-necklace-pieces-of-art.
The
finalists of The Ugly Necklace Contest were those beadwork and jewelry
designers who could best
elaborate upon
rules of design, whether
intuitively or strategically. These rules of design are in effect an
underlying grammar and vocabulary – the theoretical and professional
basis of beadwork and jewelry making as art, not just craft.
JOIN
our On-Line
Forum
Share your reactions, opinions
and thoughts about our Ugly Necklace entries,
or about the Contest as a whole.
