Pam Pniak Thompson
Jewelry and Encaustic Collage
Map Location E
I hope for my work to reflect a beauty that can be found in combining the natural and the person-made world. I aim to express a delicate strength which resembles a balance I’ve observed on our planet. My inspiration comes from discovering amazing patterns and textures in nature, urban settings and industrial landscapes, and repeating those in my collages and make into jewelry. I am also inspired by the past. I enjoy reading about— and absorbing images of— ancient jewelry,
artifacts, and architecture. This has motivated me to learn old techniques in jewelry making.
For some of my work I make my own Shibuichi, which is a silver and copper alloy that was used in apan for making decorative findings on swords. I also incorporate a process called Keum-boo into my work which is an ancient Korean technique of fusing 24 karat gold onto silver. In the last few years I have been using encaustic medium to give my collages the transparency and strength I have always tried to achieve. With collages on one side of my studio and jewelry on the other I move back and forth while one inspires the other. Some of my favorite moments in constructing my art come in a form of meditation while creating a mass of shapes to produce one shape.I love the idea of many individual parts working together to express something bigger and more powerful.
This year at NOST I will be collecting donations of old jewelry to send to Troncones Mexico to support a non profit called Las Hermanas. The jewelry is sold in a store to tourists and the funds go to help the children of Troncones and the surrounding area to afford school and support their library. If you plan of stopping by my studio consider going through that old jewelry of yours and adding it to the box I will be sending this summer.
