{"id":479971,"date":"2025-12-30T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T12:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/479971\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T12:01:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T12:01:20","slug":"alicia-pillers-sculptural-jewelry-is-otherworldly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/479971\/","title":{"rendered":"Alicia Piller’s sculptural jewelry is otherworldly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cOooh, look at this trash!\u201d<\/p>\n

Alicia Piller was giddily flitting around her Inglewood live-work studio holding up resin-coated balls of detritus, showing off tiny fossil fragments, and pulling out plastic trays filled with random thingamajigs that had been organized by color.<\/p>\n

The assortment is all part of her eclectic jewelry-making arsenal. She clusters recycled textiles, found items, donated castoffs and gemstones to create handmade wearable art that she describes as \u201cscience bohemian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a> <\/p>\n

In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who are creating original products in and around Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Piller juxtaposes opals, garnets and pearls with less conventional materials such as tile fragments, snakeskin, bits of lava from a trip to Iceland, and bullet casings, all bound together with strips of leather or vinyl. Lately, she\u2019s been working with 3-D printed waste that her friends, a pair of costume-based performance artists<\/a>, started delivering to her in giant garbage bags.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am always thinking about some aspect of recycling,\u201d she said, \u201cseeing the value in these things that we deem \u2018trash.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

One wall of her studio is lined with metal racks stacked with bins and boxes labeled \u201cclay,\u201d \u201cmetal\u201d and \u201cscraps.\u201d The room is cluttered, yet curated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a little bit of hoarding mentality,\u201d Piller laughed, \u201cbut I use it!\u201d<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"Inglewood, <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"Alicia <\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Necklaces featuring seashells, gemstones and recycled printed plastic. 2.<\/strong> Alicia Piller displays her handmade ring. (Juliana Yamada \/ Los Angeles Times) <\/p>\n

From her \u201ccontrolled chaos\u201d come intricate, ornate, one-of-a-kind necklaces, earrings, brooches and rings. While Etsy<\/a> is her main retail hub, she previously sold her wearables at L.A.\u2019s Craft Contemporary museum and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. She\u2019s also provided flair for the likes of Phylicia Rashad, Jill Scott and Ciara.<\/p>\n

Her creations give nods to nature, at times skew extraterrestrial, and have Afro-futuristic undertones. One pendant evokes the sea with its swirl of mother-of-pearl, spiral seashells and rivulets of pale gray leather arranged above a piece of bleached coral. A crystal-festooned collar necklace calls to mind a pair of Blue Morpho butterfly wings. And a jasper-studded pin resembles a Ghanaian mask at first glance.<\/p>\n

The undulating layers and microcosms that make up her jewelry\u2019s signature \u201cbiomorphic\u201d look extend into her fine art practice, as well.<\/p>\n

Piller received an MFA from Cal Arts and now teaches sculpture as an adjunct professor at UCLA and UC Irvine. Her maximalist mixed-media artwork<\/a> has shown at Track 16 <\/a>(the L.A. gallery that represents her), as well as institutions across Southern California, including the Brick and the Orange County Museum of Art. Both the Hammer Museum and the California African American Museum have her pieces in their permanent collections. Next summer, she\u2019ll unveil a new monument as part of West Hollywood\u2019s Art on the Outside<\/a> public art program. <\/p>\n

In her studio, multiple towering sculptures are ensconced in cardboard and bubble wrap, while others \u2014 works in progress \u2014 sit on plinths, lean against walls, or hang from the ceiling. There\u2019s a stark contrast between these 9-foot-tall pieces and her smallest makes, a pair of one-inch post earrings. But toggling from the massive to the minute comes naturally to her.<\/p>\n

\"Alicia <\/p>\n

Alicia Piller stands for a portrait in her studio.<\/p>\n

(Juliana Yamada \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the microscopic and the macro,\u201d she explained. \u201cI like being able to see the tiniest detail, then letting it expand out into the cosmos. I\u2019m thinking about those two scales constantly and about where we fit between those scales.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she addresses such weighty topics as police brutality and climate disasters in her large-scale works, making wearables provides comfort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe jewelry is much more free-form and fun versus the more serious stuff that feels heavy to me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not always full of activism and all these ideas about humanity and the world. It\u2019s more of a joyous, less stressful task.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI also just love to adorn myself in the things that I make.\u201d<\/p>\n

This has been true since childhood.<\/p>\n

During the studio tour, the artist pulled out a piece of brass wire bent to spell out her name, a keepsake from when she was 12. She\u2019s kept all manner of adolescent mementos, such as beads she fashioned out of tightly-rolled magazine pages or colorful pieces of clay. Her future as an artisan was a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Photos of Piller\u2019s maternal ancestors line the edges of this textural necklace, which features a pair of beetles at its center.<\/p>\n

(Juliana Yamada \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Growing up in Chicago, Piller and her mother performed as clowns at birthdays and company picnics. From ages 7 to 14, it was her job to create balloon figures for partygoers \u2014 sculpting skills that would come in handy. She gained an appreciation for nature and anthropology from mother-daughter fishing excursions and regular visits to the Field Museum<\/a>, which focuses on natural history. Her affinity for biology comes from her father, who attended medical school when she was young.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had all these books around me that had the insides of bodies,\u201d she recalled, \u201cso there was a fascination with the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piller went on to study anthropology and painting at Rutgers University, making jewelry in her spare time. During breaks, she\u2019d work at a Chicago bead store, where she learned about global jewelry-making practices. After graduating in 2004, she moved to Manhattan, spending weekends hawking accessories and hand-painted clothing from a sidewalk table. She later relocated to Santa Fe, N.M., where she worked at a store selling fossils, minerals and semi-precious stones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I really understood that in all these materials there\u2019s a spiritual side, an energy,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a beauty in the fusion of all of these materials together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piller moved to Inglewood in 2019. Asked if L.A. has impacted her work the way previous cities had, she said, \u201c[My] storytelling, narrative side has come to the forefront. There\u2019s definitely been a shift, in terms of thinking about how an object can tell a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, enamored of Pasadena-born author Octavia Butler, she began referencing the sci-fi legend\u2019s writing and using her likeness, both in sculptural form (as with her 2024 piece \u201cMission Control. Earthseed.\u201d<\/a>) and in her jewelry<\/a>. She also started incorporating images of other inspiring women, including her maternal forebears and the Cuban American sculptor Ana Mendieta<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"Earrings <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"Cuban <\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Earrings featuring science fiction author Octavia Butler, one of Piller\u2019s many inspirations. 2.<\/strong> A necklace made from a crinoid fossil stem. 3.<\/strong> Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta sits at the center of these necklaces. (Juliana Yamada\/Los Angeles Times) <\/p>\n

L.A. has shaped her aesthetic in more literal ways, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of what I do is walking and doing urban hikes,\u201d she said, noting that she\u2019s trekked through nearly 20 countries. She\u2019s walked from her studio to Watts Towers or westward to Torrance, collecting things she finds on the ground along the way and eventually transforming them. For instance, a pair of jewel-toned beetles she picked up made an ideal centerpiece for a regal bib necklace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s that side of me that really gets excited about looking at those objects, then creating my own sort of cosmology, my own artifacts, if you will,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m using \u2018high\u2019 gemstones to \u2018low\u2019 plastic and elevating all of them, fusing them into one work that then creates this energy, this power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOooh, look at this trash!\u201d Alicia Piller was giddily flitting around her Inglewood live-work studio holding up resin-coated…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":479972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[217510,51519,1037,1582,276,217513,217511,6276,2961,217512,224,5337,217514,1759,21578,5996,8061,24651,17823,27029],"class_list":{"0":"post-479971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-alicia-piller","9":"tag-anthropology","10":"tag-art","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-craft-contemporary-museum","14":"tag-jewelry-maker","15":"tag-l-a","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-large-scale-work","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-metal-rack","21":"tag-nature","22":"tag-pair","23":"tag-part","24":"tag-piece","25":"tag-studio","26":"tag-thing","27":"tag-trash"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115808415792550898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}