Artist Drills into Antique Ceramics to Transform Them into Exquisite Pieces of Jewelry

Ceramic Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Artist Gésine Hackenberg transforms ceramic plates, bowls, and dishes into exquisite pieces of jewelry. Using dinnerware as her raw material, she extracts small discs from them and strings them together like beads or inlays them among metal for earrings and rings. Hackenberg tends to focus on the decorative part of a plate or bowl, such as popular Delft patterns, which results in colorful and unassuming pieces of wearable art. If you didn’t know the story behind this ceramic jewelry, you’d never realize they were once used for enjoying a tasty meal.

Hackenberg’s work is a reframing of ordinary objects into the perspective of jewelry. “Coming from a goldsmithing background,” she says, “I think I got… kind of bored working within the classic parameters of ‘jewelry.’ ” This is when she began experimenting with materials, in both a conceptual and physical sense. By changing the context of where we see the earthenware, Hackenberg is giving it a new and unexpected existence. In cutting up the dishes, she is putting a twist on what’s possible for beading.

Hackenberg’s plates and bowls come from secondhand shops. After she’s selected the pieces she'll use for her jewelry, she uses a manual drilling machine to form the beads, or as she calls them, “pearls.” Once the extraction is done, the small elements are then arranged into wearable pieces. They are never fully divorced from the source, however. When not being worn, the art jewelry is meant to be near the dishes with holes punched in them.

Artist Gésine Hackenberg creates ceramic jewelry extracted from secondhand plates and other pieces of dishware.

Ceramic Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Ceramic Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Art Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Ceramic Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Ceramic Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Art Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Jewelry Art by Gesine Hackenberg

Jewelry Art by Gesine Hackenberg

Ceramic Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Art Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Jewelry Art by Gesine Hackenberg

Ceramic Jewelry by Gesine Hackenberg

Gésine Hackenberg: Website 

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Gésine Hackenberg.

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Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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