ANNETTE KRAMER designs



ANNETTE KRAMER designs

About The Artist

Annette Kramer • Reston, VA
Jewelry • WHOLESALE AVAILABLE • CUSTOM COMMISSIONS

My work is bold, fun, imaginative. I'm strongly influenced by organic natural beauty and enjoy incorporating modern design elements -- unconventional colors and unexpected shapes -- that invite the wearer to consider natural forms through a different lens. I strive to engineer my designs to create truly comfortable sculptural jewelry that is a pleasure to wear.



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Q&A with the Artist

Tell us how your work is made.

Lightweight and delightfully tactile, polymer clay is a chameleon material -- its tremendous versatility makes it natural for jewelry creation. I enjoy creating sculptural forms that leverage its inherent strengths: color retention, elasticity, shear strength, translucency, easy pairing with other materials. I often cure my pieces multiple times to enable continued manipulation and fine detail, thus achieving my vision without causing distortion to the piece.


What makes you passionate about the medium you work with?

Polymer clay is a medium with a low "barrier to entry" -- relatively inexpensive and cures at a moderate temperature without a kiln. Yet those same wonderful qualities have created a perception problem among some collectors. Just as one creates fine art with acrylic paint or chalk, one can create fine artworks in polymer clay. I seek to help this medium earn the respect of artists, craftspeople and collectors who can appreciate the unique role of polymer clay in achieving an artistic vision.

What is something unique about you or your practice?

I "sketch" my early designs in clay -- not in pencil. I have prototypes of various attempts lying all around my studio. In jewelry design, it's one thing to draw a beautiful concept. It's quite another to engineer that concept to be properly positioned, to feel weightless, to comfortably augment the beauty of the wearer.