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Jay Song
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Jay Song, Metalsmith & Professor at SCAD
About my work
Jewelry has always served as way to interpret and express by exploring lanterns as a communicative form. This series of lantern rings is more intimate, in that the lanterns are meant to hang from hands that pray or meditate. The rings fit the fingers or hands of the wearer, letting the lanterns hang below. These lanterns utilize the both ceremonial and decorative functions. These lantern rings are not meant to isolate specific meanings, but rather suggest a moment of thought where stillness, beauty, and illumination can peacefully coexist.
Metalsmith Magazine (Summer 2002)
"[W]ith their interactive elements, these ornaments also draw in the wearer and viewer by generating tensions between visible surfaces and concealed interiors. Song's rings use hands as expressive sites where the memories that no one can see become visible - they are alive."