The Moon Sisters are more magical than ever. Since their CVLT Nation introduction just short of a year ago, these beautiful ladies have transformed Sisters of the Black Moon into a thriving culmination of mystical treasures. Not only does their vintage shop continue to fill with unbelievable threads, but with the revamp of their official website, they’ve also formed some amazing collaborations, allowing their brand to expand and take form tenfold. SOTBM are now proud connoisseurs of organic apothecary and sanctuary items, metal-wielded, crystallized jewels, and custom-made regalia; working with and selling exclusive designs from artists and designers such as Ovate, Onward Into The Future, Alchemy, Heyoka Leather, and Irinalaaja. Stunning editorials by family friend Alexandra Valenti, who’s been by their side since the very beginning, are also a staple to their realm of shadowy eccentricities. These women truly do seek to create a world for their work to live in. And man, do I want to live there, too. But what is most magical about SOTBM is that in creating this world, it has become a sanctuary for like-minded creators, artisans and connoisseurs of shadowy delight. It’s yet just another manifestation they embody, emphasizing the inter-connectivity of humankind.
MOTÖRHEAD Rings
By The Great Frog0
Posted In Fashion,Jewelry,Music
The Great Frog, originators of the iconic Skull Ring, have just released a collaboration with Motörhead – two sterling silver rings, the Ace of Spades and the Warpig. They are made with exquisite detail, especially the Warpig ring, which is just bad fucking ass! I hope Joe Petagno gets one! The rings were launched last Friday, and are available online and in the three The Great Frog stores – London, New York and LA. Each one is engraved with a Limited Edition Number, and are handcrafted to order. After the jump, check out closeups of the two styles and a 360 video look at the Warpig ring.
Artifacts From Hell is the evil brainchild of Michael Schulz, a collection of hand-carved and cast jewelry that looks like Satan’s own talismans. He casts his dark arts in solid bronze and aluminum, and creates a texture on the metal’s surface that gives the impression that these pieces were indeed born of hellfire. His amulets are some of the most terrifying and truly evil pieces of jewelry that I have ever seen. True, they are beautifully and delicately carved, with minute details intricately fashioned – the bony wingtips of a demon, the tiny skulls, the placenta of the hellspawn fetus are all carefully rendered. But their beauty is definitely in the eye of the black metal beholder, because these Artifacts From Hell are true to their name, and conjure more nightmares than dreams. This isn’t the kind of shit you are going to find in jewelery stores, so you can pick it up from the artist’s own shop. After the jump, check out a gallery of artifacts stolen from the Underworld…
Theft of Light…OCCULTER0
Posted In Fashion,Jewelry
OCCULTER is a project by Black Sheep & Prodigal Sons, the brainchild of NYC-based artist Derrick Cruz. Cruz combines art and commerce in his jewelry, books and sculpture. He brings a fascination for funerary crafts, alchemical studies and First Nations mythology to his works, fusing these three elements in his handcrafted and inspired pieces. His Splinter series features earrings, a ring and a pendant cast from splinters from New York’s heritage buildings – the ring and earrings are early 1900s wood beam splinters from a Rivington Street building, and the pendant is a splinter taken from a century-old Lower East Side synagogue. Cruz ventures into the strange and wonderful with his horsehair necklaces and bracelets from his Theft of Light collection, which are immaculately braided and thick and glossy, reminiscent of Victorian hair memento jewelry. His Monolith collection features pendants that are inspired by nature’s patterns that are carved by wind and sea into rock, sand and glacier. These pendants have a dark beauty to them that I find really compelling – maybe it’s the aesthetic of erosion, a kind of decay. Cruz also offers up a cast human jaw in solid bronze coated in 24 K gold…and let me just put this on the record – anyone who buys this to grind their cigarette butts into has justly earned my hatred. OCCULTER has a depth of inspiration that is difficult to find in “dark” jewelry, which can so often fall into the skull and bones rut. It’s refreshing to see the different perspective and breadth of research brought by Cruz to his creations. After the jump, check out some of my favorite pieces from OCCULTER…
Our homie Gia at Unearthen Jewelry is, in my opinion, the originator of the bullet crystal necklace, which has subsequently been copied by many. While her jewelry doesn’t have the dark vibe of the lines that I usually cover, her pieces can fit well into any metal girl’s wardrobe. She creates one of a kind pieces using earthy, rough crystals, and her presentation is as original as her jewelry. My favorite pieces above all are her vintage watches with quartz pyramid faces – the quartz is chunky and just out from the face of the delicate and carefully chosen vintage watches, and you can still tell the time by looking through one of the prismatic sides of the crystal. She also makes beautiful prism rings, where the crystals sit nestled on either side of your finger. Her OG pieces, the bullet pendants, feature roughly hewn crystal shards embedded in empty shell casings, some real and some cast, and create a contrast between the raw materials created by the Earth, and what human beings make of them. I have seen her workroom with my own eyes, and I know that she creates her pieces meticulously by hand.
After the jump, take a look at some of my favorite pieces from her shop…
Memento Mori…Loved to Death0
Posted In Fashion,Jewelry
OK weird…so I was searching for things like “taxidermy,” as usual, and I came across a very interesting line of Victorian-inspired taxidermy jewelry by Loved to Death. Although I first found their Etsy store full of birds’ and bats’ wings necklaces and squirrel head pendants, in my researching I also found out that Loved to Death is a store on Haight St. in San Francisco. And then the weird part – they run the Articulated Gallery, which I inadvertently posted about in my feature on Dan Harding, who is a part of their current group show, Under the Gun. Even the Internet can be a small world sometimes. It’s not surprising that Loved to Death run a gallery, as their curio shop and accessory line evolved from their art – anthropomorphic taxidermy dioramas. Anyway, besides running a gallery that shows rad artists, Loved to Death make some freaky and fascinating pieces that they call “taxidermy memento mori,” and pay tribute to the little creatures that have passed on by memorializing them in the form of earrings, pendants and rings. Some of my personal favorites are the human tooth rings, where pristine molars are set into sterling silver ring settings. I am not sure where they get the teeth, but they assure us that all of the creatures they use in their taxidermy died of natural causes – not at their hands. They use the preserved bones of the animals in creative ways, painting or dying them and gilding their little teeth. Another amazing piece is the rattlesnake head pendant, which leaps off your chest as if it’s about to strike. Loved to Death also collaborated on some cast squirrel heart pieces with another favorite line of mine, Bloodmilk. After the jump, find your taxidermy dream come true among Loved to Death’s memento mori…
Corvid Magick…Moon Raven Designs0
Posted In Fashion,Jewelry
Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is a truly magickal place. Not only is it the occult center of Canada, it is home to a vast array of wildlife that literally live in people’s back yards. There really are no words to describe the natural beauty and power of B.C., and Vancouver Island is the jewel in it’s crown. Moon Raven Designs is based in the village of Brentwood Bay, Vancouver Island, and is run by Dianne and Michael Doyle, who handcraft stunning jewelry based on the wildlife they experience on a daily basis. Much of their collection is corvidae-inspired, and centers around raven and crow skulls and talons. However, they also venture into sea life, human anatomy, antlers and wildcats, among others. They cast in a variety of metals, and make earrings, pendants, rings and bracelets that are exceptional in their design and finish. I even found some amazing bird skull drawer pulls and a cross switchblade necklace. After the jump, find yourself a new handmade accessory by Moon Raven Designs…
Death is an ever-present and completely preoccupying aspect of life. Whether it terrifies you or excites you, it is something that is constantly under scrutiny by the metal community. I guess that’s why I search out artists who bring death to life in their work, who ask us to face it and to think about it. One of those artists, whom I am so happy to have found, is Sarina Brewer. Brewer is a taxidermic artist – she creates reverential portraits of found animal carcasses, sometimes simply using the carcass as she finds it, but more often than not altering it in some way. She creates chimeras, gilded corpses, frankensteins, talismans, siamese twins and the occasional punk squirrel. Brewer acknowledges that some people may find her perspective offensive, but contends that she is paying homage to and carrying on global traditions of revering the dead through mummification and other forms of preservation. She points out that the Victorians often used preserved body parts, such as hair or teeth, in their death jewelry, and that she too makes death jewelry with her animals. As Brewer says, reverence is relative, so why judge how a people deal with their dead? Not just an artist and jeweler, Brewer is also active in the science and animal rescue communities – she volunteers in the biology department of the Science Museum of Minnesota, and also works to rescue and rehabilitate animals. Her art uses roadkill, discarded livestock and donated corpses – the animals are in no way hunted or killed for her artistic purposes. I find her breed of art weird in a wonderful way; it makes my skin crawl with the enjoyment of her creativity. After the jump, enter Sarina Brewer’s world…
An old friend of ours, Nick Potash, is a seriously talented craftsman. He has two lines of hand-carved rings and pendants, 1/1 custom pieces, and Pompeii, a line he sells both on his blog and in jewelry boutiques. He makes some sick shit – skulls with precious stone “brains”, rattlesnake rings, pyramid rings and scrimshaw pieces. He uses ancient symbols to imbue each piece with powerful energies that transfer to the wearer, so each piece is literally carved inside and out. His work has the touch of artisanship and creativity that I look for in jewelry. My favorite piece is the sterling and bronze pyramid ring – it’s huge and commanding, and it looks like it is radiating witchcraft and omnipotence. After the jump check out more of his work…
Blood Milk1
Posted In Fashion,Independent,Jewelry
Betsey from Relapse hipped us to Blood Milk Jewelry the other day…and I am so happy she did. Blood Milk is one of those diamonds in the rough on Etsy.com, which I find overwhelmingly felt and stitching potholder-y most of the time. She make one-of-a-kind rings, necklaces and bracelets using rose gold, oxidized sterling silver and oxidized brass. Her inspiration is a mixture of all of the witchcrafts that have been a part of European culture for millenia, from pre-Celtic pentagrams to Gypsy tarot to Victorian spiritualism. She uses a lot of animal parts in her jewelry, but in a way that suggests the components of a powerful spell. She creates rings out of talons and skulls and bracelets from bones. The resulting pieces are both sinister and delicate at the same time. Many of the pieces she creates are feminine, but she makes some intense double-finger rings, like her eagle talons ring, that would look epic on guys too. She has a massive inventory on her Etsy store, and I ventured into it and chose some of my favorite pieces to share after the jump…
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