Square resin bracelets, c. 1985.
Courtesy Martha Sturdy.
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In the early 1990s, while doing research for my book Copper Art Jewelry: A Different Lustre, I discovered that designer Jerry Fels, owner of the midcentury copper jewelry company Renoir of California, was also the mysterious Curtis Jeré of Artisan House, the premier producer of modernist metal wall sculpture. This fact made me realize that the copper jewelry I had come to love was a microcosmic version of the wall sculpture that I also collected and sold. I began pondering the relationship between the design of jewelry and the design of larger scale art and objects, and wondered which came first? The brooch or the atomic-burst wall sculpture?
I really delved into this question in 2008 when I discovered the late-1970s vintage jewelry designs of Martha Sturdy, Vancouver, Canada’s, most noteworthy design export. I fell in love with her square and triangular bangles, oversized faux gilt-chain bracelets and necklaces and finishes of matte, shiny and bronzed gold-tone patination. Her jewelry seemed distinctly ancient in tone while utterly a product of the late ‘70s and the ‘80s. At the same time, it seemed futuristic. I discovered that although Sturdy was no longer creating jewelry, she was still a force in the world of modern furniture design and home accessories in Canada; from the late ‘80s through the ‘90s, she had operated retail shops all over the country. Although the retail operation had ceased, she still ran a factory and wholesale showroom in Vancouver. I speedily made an appointment with her studio manager, Amanda MacGregor, to see the place first-hand.
MacGregor met me at the gated entrance to the factory, and I was instantly bowled over by the scent of curing resin, a smell I knew well as a purveyor of Bakelite and celluloid jewelry. I was whisked away for a tour and dazzled with exquisite modernist furniture, artwork, lighting, huge centerpiece bowls and rectangular floral containment systems, all swirling in an array of resin colorations from earthily naturalistic to indisputably fantastic: Carrara marble-like white, amber, matte coal black, grass green, hot pink and orange, all mildly transparent and simulating nature’s own creations. I also noticed massive brushed steel sheeting, bronze detailing and metallic elements. I was captivated by the power of pure geometry at work in Sturdy’s clean-lined simple furniture designs. Then I spied another treasure: a bowl of long-forgotten geometric bangle bracelets made of resin, thick, chunky, deliciously rich, glowing art objects for the wrist. As with Jerry Fels’s jewelry and Jeré’s wall sculpture, I realized that this was a designer whose vision was pure and consistent. The sensibility in these resin bangles created 30 years earlier was still engendering this contemporary art and furniture.
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