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Q1 Please tell us your brief profile and working career. Why did you become a designer?
I've been an electronic musician for longer than I've been a jewelry designer, and for a while I was experimenting with circuit bending--modifying the circuit of battery-powered toys and consumer electronics to create new or unusual sounds. |
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Since I had all these electronic components laying around from that project, it occurred to me that they might make neat jewelry, so I quickly made a necklace before I went to a performance. At the show I got a lot of compliments on my new necklace and a few requests from people wanting their own. This experience inspired me to create my own jewelry line. Later on I would share photos of my designs with some influential blogs, and convinced a few on-line stores to buy some pieces. From that point the project gained momentum and I began pursuing jewelry design as a full time part of my practice, in addition to music making.
Q2 Would you tell us about the brand? What is the concept behind it?
On one hand I am interested in the juxtaposition of a traditional handicraft, jewelry making, and the mass manufactured components of the "information age." |
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Q4 Who is your favorite designer?
Clothing-wise I like Diesel, Dsquared, Gentle Fawn, some of Prada's stuff, and pretty much everything on Mudsharkstreetwear.com. Blogs where I constantly lust after stuff they post include design-milk, coolhunting, dorkmag.com, ooh-shiny.net, and a bunch of others that focus on innovative design with a modern slant. |
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Q5 What is your greatest inspiration when you make pieces?
The main idea is the happy marriage of form and idea. For me, the appeal has to come from both the conceptual side--beauty in showcasing the conduits of technological progress along with the beauty of often-overlooked components; and the formalist side--that the design itself can stand alone without the conceptual content. I think it's great when people buy my pieces without even knowing what the individual components are, but I'm also excited to help collectors own a piece because they understand the function of the materials and appreciate how they've been re-contextualized.
Q6 Who is your dream collaborator?
I would love to pair up with a more commercially-successful designer to to collaborate on a line that while maintaining the almost subversive qualities of the work still holds an appeal to a more mainstream audience in order to expose more people to my work. |
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Zelle's lead designer, Liz McLean Knight was hunched over her soldering iron blissfully imagining the crazy sounds she would unleash at the show at which she was scheduled to perform in just a few short weeks. She picked up a little plastic sequencer toy from Radio Shack earlier in the day called "The DJ Challenge" and was attempting to circuit-bend its output into something completely sonically innovative. After frying its single teeny speaker in an unfortunate experiment, she abandoned the project in a mess of electronic guts on her apartment table while she devised an alternate plan. Weeks went by and Liz eventually found more satisfaction composing electronic music through virtual instruments on her laptop than through manipulating the ohms of resistors. On her way out the door to the aforementioned show, she picked up a few choice electronic bits, quickly twisted them together, and made a necklace.After the show she was greeted not only with commendations on her music, but on her new jewelry. A few people asked her to make more necklaces, and maybe some matching bracelets--and Zelle was born. |
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On the other hand, while yes, it's edgy in its use of nontraditional materials, and speaks to those who desire to express their inner geek (as well as to fashionistas and design enthusiasts) the act of replacing gems and precious metals for the symbols of our highly wired world--resistors, capacitors, diodes-- also speaks to the ever increasing importance of these simple technologies in our everyday lives. Not only do the pieces appealing because of the beautifully simple aesthetics of their design, but they also ask us to reflect, perhaps somewhat nostalgically, on the rapid pace of technological change.
Q3 Do you usually wear jewelry? What kind of style do you like?
When I'm not wearing my own stuff I wear very sleek minimal designs. I have a few favorite pairs of earrings, among them, ones designed like the caffiene molecule (by Made with Molecules), and ones that resemble hex nuts and screw heads (by Individual Icons)-all of them cast in silver. |
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| I also have blank post findings that I wear straight from my supplier. I love them because they have a nice simple (functional) pattern on them and are very lightweight. I've had people compliment me on them and I kind of giggle when I tell them, because they are "blank." Totally minimal! I have a small Movado watch for formal occasions and I rock one of the men's binary watches from TheOne when I am feeling more rock star. |
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Q7 Tell us the locations where we can find your jewelry.
I have my own online store where I have my own line as well as other jewelry and accessories that are just as geek chic, Fractalspin.com. There are also geek stores based out of the US that carry select pieces, X-Tremegeek.com and Thinkgeek.com, ZeStuff.com, and GetDigital.de. A very cool online store that's based out of Ann Arbor MI has lots of great accessories and artwork along with stuff from the Zelle line, Shanalogic.com. Some pieces can also be found at Robotspeak in San Francisco and a few other regional boutiques in the states.
Q8 Would you tell us about your next collection? Any future plans?
I'm working on a collaboration with a friend of mine who's a musician who makes music on his Nintendo Gameboy, Nullsleep. At one of his shows I noticed his necklace--it was made from a certain recognizable part from vintage computer media. |
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| I thought it was great so we talked about designing collaborative jewelry pieces that I would sell through my line. It's exciting because I've been getting a lot of great feedback from strangers when I wear one of the prototypes so I think it's going to do well. I'm also looking forward to the crossover potential of our collaboration--electronic music made from obsolete hand-held game systems is a perfect fit for jewelry made from obsolete technology. |
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