Windgate-Lamar Fellowship
2024
Our adornments are intertwined with their materials. As a jewelry artist, I merge recycled metals, repurposed wood, and responsibly harvested plants with fabrication and casting. By combining carefully considered materials and traditional jewelry techniques, I create adornments that speak to how intertwined we are with our surroundings, the land, and our past.
Connection brings awe and wonder into my life and leads me to develop creative designs that deepen my relationship with place. This interrelatedness is a central theme in my work, seen in the use of cast organic materials and endemic wood elements. Adornment is an act of conversation with ourselves and an expression of ourselves to the world around us. If our jewelry connects us to our surroundings, what do the materials of our jewelry say about how we relate to the world around us?
Laura Lau Klein has held creativity, adornment, and the human role within the ecosystem closely throughout life. Their work as a painter and regard for living spurred them to study Art, Art History, and Anthropology at the University of Delaware. This education created a deeper understanding of how art shapes humanity and vice versa. Lau’s time in university didn’t quell their curiosity but inspired it further, leading them to pursue an artist practice while traveling the country working on different farms. Landing in Western North Carolina, their appreciation for material culture blossomed; learning natural dying and basketry, woodcarving and jewelry. While surrounded by the community of craftspeople in Western North Carolina, the necessity for Lau to build a handmade life became clear. This passion took them to Penland School of Craft, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and, most recently, the Professional Crafts program at Haywood Community College to study jewelry. Lau now lives in Asheville, NC where they carry a deep respect for the land and communities of Southern Appalachia and integrate this care into their mixed media and jewelry work.
Selected works
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