BEAUTY: Sculpture AND Jewelry--Debra Baxter

I love crystals and mineral formations and artist Debra Baxter uses them in startling sculptures as well as incredible jewelry pieces. I love her "Crystal Knuckles" series, and her alabaster holster full of amethyst and smokey quartz is fun and beautiful at the same time.

"Debra Baxter is a sculptor and jewelry designer who combines carved alabaster with crystals, minerals, metals, and found objects. She received her MFA in Sculpture from Bard College in 2008 and her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1996. She also studied at Academia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. Baxter has received an Artist Trust Individual Artist Grant, three 4Culture Individual Project Grants in Seattle, Washington, and was recently nominated for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award.

Baxter’s wearable sculpture piece Devil Horns Crystal Brass Knuckles (Lefty) is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery."

Crystal Brass Knuckles (Aura Blow)--Aqua Aura Crystal and White Rhodium Plated Bronze

Basta--Cedar, Quartz Crystals, Alabaster

Coming Up For Air--Glass, Alabaster, Selenite

Crystal Brass Knuckles II--Quartz crystals, Gold plated bronze

Crystal Brass Knuckles (I am going to realign your chakras motherf*****)--Quartz crystals, Sterling silver

Devil's Horn Crystal Brass Knuckles (Lefty)--Quartz crystal, Sterling silver

From The Hip--Alabaster, Amethyst, Smokey quartz, Leather

In the Marrow of my Bone--Alabaster, Malachite

Malachite--Bronze and Malachite

Mic Drop--Glass, Alabaster

Mine--Alabaster, Glass

Pyrolysis--Smokey quartz, Burnt wood, Bronze

Take Your Medicine--Quart crystal, Sterling silver

Face Down (About To Get Up And Fight)--Cast Glass, Citrine

https://debrabaxter.com/

BEAUTY: Ceramics--Renee Brown

Ceramicist Renee Brown uses clay to make objects that look like crystal and mineral formations. I love how she uses texture and the glaze process to convincingly replicate specimens that look as if they have been mined form the earth. In her Artist Statement, Brown says, "My sculptures are crafted from a personal vernacular of beauty. Referencing objects from the mineral world, I am inspired by the endless possibilities of surface and composition. My imagination’s interpretation of these objects flow into the work, often bypassing what might rationally be found in nature. This blurred line between reality and created reality intrigues me. Minerals that are mined for ceramic supply enter my studio in their pummeled state and are transformed into the visual essence of their original existence."

http://www.reneebrownceramics.com/

BEAUTY: Mixed Media--Uri Shapira

Quartz material manufacturer Caesarstone commissioned Israeli artist Uri Shapira to create Crystallizing Philippe, a Louis Ghost chair designed by Philippe Starck covered in artificially cultured and grown quartz crystals.

For those unfamiliar, Starck, an interior, product, industrial and architectural designer created the Louis Ghost chair in 2002. It is an injection-molded transparent polycarbonate version of the historic neo-classical Louis XVI chair. Here is what the chair looks like without an encrustation of quartz.

Shapira tweaked Philippe's tweak by bathing a Louis Ghost chair in a chemical solution which quickly grows quartz crystals.

Here are some photos of the process with the chair resting in the chemical solution to promote rapid crystal growth.

http://urishapira.com/
http://www.dwr.com/product/louis-ghost-armchair.do
http://www.starck.com/en/

BEAUTY: Ceramics--Brett Freund

Ceramicist Brett Freund makes imaginative bowls and vases that look like cartoon versions of crystals formations. I like how the shapes look like they are sketched with a charcoal pencil.

http://www.brettfreundportfolio.com/

BEAUTY: Mixed Media--Alexis Arnold

Working with discarded books she has found in the street, San Francisco artist Alexis Arnold petrifies them in a crystal solution, making some rather lovely geode-like formations.

Arnold says, "The Crystallized Book Series addresses the materiality of the book versus the text or content of the book, in addition to commenting on the vulnerability of the printed book. The crystals remove the text and transform the books into aesthetic, non-functional objects. The books, frozen with crystal growth, have become artifacts or geologic specimens imbued with the history of time, use, and nostalgia. The series was prompted by repeatedly finding boxes of discarded books, by the onset of e-books, and by the shuttering of bookstores."

Top to bottom: The Alchemist's Handbook; All's Well That Ends Well; All's Well That Ends Well detail; Catcher In The Rye view and detail; Crime and Punishment; The Dictionary of Superstitions; Linux: The Complete Manual; The Autobiography of Benevuto Cellini

http://www.alexisarnold.com/