Pamela Love Jewellery

I've kept the name of Pamela Love under my little directory of cool, grungy, Gothic inspired silver jewellery for about two, nearly three years now and it's time I shared just a few of her pieces with you! Previously, I had written about the collaboration with Pamela Love as well as opening Ceremony as inspired by the movie (based on children's book) Where the Wild Things Are. It seems that she's also had another collaboration with Opening Ceremony featuring beaded skull necklaces on dangling silver chains which you can see by scrolling further down but here are some of the golden oldies and her newer pieces.

  

Above is a mock raw crystal necklace in decadent grungy silver and matched with silver nail polish. It would make a hell of a knuckle-duster; I myself favour wearing heavy set rings in case of a scuffle and fight in which I can find a weapon to defend myself with readily. I've never needed to resort to those measures though...

In a guest blog appearance for the Opening Ceremony website,Pamela Love showed off some of her inspiration and trinkets collected from the duration of her life including a friendly looking snake charm carved in wood. Perhaps that was inspiration for this coiled snake around a thick and chunky piece of amethyst coloured quartz? Well I just love it and the tinted colour as the stone gets darker towards the bottom of the gem and I do like snake motifs but I am rather picky and pretentious about their execution. They can't look too skinny or fat and they mustn't look threatening is my criteria- I also prefer that they have a  friendly smile.

This style of necklace has been much imitated in online stores far and wide on Etsy but I do love the design of sharp little daggers offered by Pamela Love in her collaborating with Opening Ceremony in a range of colours. My taste in fashion and jewellery is wide, varied and undisciplined and this is one of the few tribal looking pieces I am attracted, but who could say no to those little grinning teeth and big empty eye sockets? These necklaces make a great statement piece when worn below a coloured shirt buttoned up all the way.

 

The silver cross necklace that seemingly ensnares your finger in a small cage has been a favourite among fashion bloggers and has been sold through quite a few popular online stores in the past including Net-A-Porter. It's one of the rings that really mesmerised me and drew me into the collection as well as Pamela Love's other large chunky silver rings. I still have a soft spot for them after so many weeks and months- they hold a little bit of nostalgia for me I guess in that sense.
 

 

Another heavy set ring featuring a cross that is a 'crowd favourite' as it were is this large and detailed beast with oxidised black top as well as detail on engraved scripture and shoulder motifs as well.The last time I saw this ring on eBay the seller was asking for close to $800 AUD, so if you happen to own this ring, or indeed, any of the jewellery pieces shown here or created by Pamela Love, count yourself a very lucky person. I bet modern day witches would be all over the silver goodness of her collection and the oxidised detail and style of her jewellery.

Believe it or not, but this silver ring above is my favourite ring from across all her collections and ranges. The moon phase ring, featuring a large rectangular tablet shaped face and four moon phases in engraved and oxidised finish to give off this black look. It too costs some few hundreds of dollars and has been one of the more rare rings to track down from Pamela Love so if I had the money and managed to sell, oh, say half of my wardrobe on eBay I may get this little beast of a ring right after I pop out and get myself an iPad. However all this is wishful thinking and with university orientation coming up I'm going to have to save money to pay for a small laptop for notes as well as keeping money aside for functions for first year students. The next few months will be busy and busier!

The final thick and juicy rectangular tablet shaped silver ring from Pamela Love that I adore is this sword ring- I actually like the detail and pattern on the band on this ring more than the moon ring but I still love the motif of the moon phases a bit more than the sword. It must be all my study of Literature, there are constant suggestions that the moon is feminine, soft, passive and is a representation of the night; whereas the sun represents the day and is supposedly active and masculine. Phoebe, Diana and Artemis are the goddess' of the moon and are named after woman so maybe as a creature of feminine whiles and grace I favour the moon as an unconscious decision?

The artist and jewellery designer Pamela Love has as of late, been favouring crystal's whether they be fake or metallic and I absolutely adore the trend but the structure of the rings seems a little dubious to me. The necklaces in the shape of a crescent moon and arch are gorgeous and so is the copper coloured metal used- very chic and unusual.

I still don't own a skull necklace by Pamela Love and I swear they've been in store for months now! Slack on my part, but maybe I've just been waiting for the perfect colour to come along, such as this bright cherry red shade of skulls as well as little daggers hanging out of their smiling craniums.

An Outsider look at Pamela Love

I find myself continuously back-flipping between glamorous vintage style jewellery and dark Gothic pieces made of silver and worn by creatures of the night. What's worse is that there's now the vintage and kitsch domestic inner  goddess longing to break free and buy everything possible on Etsy. One thing that seems to stay constant is my attraction towards this dark grunge style of jewellery from Pamela Love, as well as fangs necklace from Perks And Mini and now Bloodmilk Jewellery as well. As hard as I try to turn my back on witch-like jewellery, the harder it draws me back in with it's allure and I am not complaining at all. I love the crystal necklaces, silver crosses as well as bone motifs and Ouija board pointers.

Sometime later today I will begin to clean my room again and put some clothes back I took out for my outfit posts; I can't wait to move out of my old room and move into a more adult setting where I'll have crystal agate/ geode book ends as well as small glass bottles and Polaroids made of felt about the place. For such a creative release it should get both sides of my brain working since I'll be studying science for the next three years at least. I'll need the occasional creative workout too as well as logic. That's another reason I'm itching to join clubs at university and meed people who actually decorate/ want to live in a similar manner to myself.

The designer of Pamela Love knows just what's right to showoff her pieces to their best ability teaming them up with long locks of tangled hair tumbling down in large waves as well as black and white filtered effects for photography and grungy, old-worn shirts. Although the clothing is very basic and minimalist, the jewellery such as this heavy signet ring strung on a silver chain, the snake charm and earrings have a dark gypsy quality about them. I bet the pieces she creates would look so good with ear cuffs.

Here is my model hero, Alexa Chung pictured on the right with the designer of the silver jewellery range Pamela Love; at the back you can see some of the thicker set silver crosses from the range as well as dream catchers and cowboy boots. I love what Alexa is wearing (no real surprise, I always do) the pattern looks so good in the black and white filter and both the lovely ladies eyes are outlined by thick mascara too.

As well as crosses, claws and talons have also been recreated in silver for their jewellery range which looks great when layered upon another Pamela Love piece such as this cross? The snakeskin patterned blouse as well as purple streaks through the hair above ooze character and charisma and the tan skin peaking from the unbuttoned shirt is an interesting and surprising quirk as well.

Witchcraft

Bloodmilk Jewellery runs an amazing blog, if you enjoy the evil looking photographs I sometimes post and dark magic in general you should have a peak over there and at their Etsy store as well. I could liken their pieces to that of Pamela Love in that dark, grunge tradition of using oxidised silver and creating bird skulls as well as Ouija board pointers, bones, raw crystal and pentagrams. I like the gritty style and darkness of it all, not that I'm anti-religious but I think it's easier to embrace something that's dark and alluring. Besides, I read a lot of books about witches as it is so I don't see them as evil, more like rich characters with interesting stories to tell.

Instagram seems a fitting tool to take a photograph of this pentagram necklace made of chunky sticks of silver in its rough shape. The chains used for these two necklaces aren't overly decorative and I think it would look rather nice against a clean and crisp blouse. It's a shame I don't have a spare hundred dollars lying around, I could really splash out on the pentagram star necklace as well as an amazing rune stone cuff. Grit, character and intuitive design in jewellery will always win over boring plain pieces that are made poorly in basic metals. I don't understand why some people my age still buy from stores like Diva, they're so cheap and nasty.

Another alluring feature of photographs from Bloodmilk Jewels is there studio space- out of focus in the foreground of this photograph is a perfectly dried out starfish. The exoskeleton is as hauntingly beautiful as it is creepy and there's something intriguing about the mixture of those two features. When I was a little girl I loved going to the beach and collecting as many seashells as possible- I still have that quirk when I go down to the beach with my friends but most of the time I throw them back in.

I've wanted to have a claw ring for a while but I'm not sure whether I want to have a really gritty and realistic claw sitting on my finger from Bloodmilk or something smoother and with sleeker lines from Unearthen. Between the two pieces there won't be a massive difference in price and with Unearthen I also have a choice of different metals and stones. While I go like the large talons and oxidised details of this ringing sitting around with petrified eggs, I'm more attracted to the perfect shape of an orb and it's association with magic and wizardry.

After pouring my eyes over the Bloodmilk website I got in the mood to cut out some thick paper in the shapes of bones and a skull but I don't think I would ever be game enough to collect bones and taxidermy also creeps me out a fair bit. Although I have aspirations towards becoming a veterinarian I would prefer to concentrate on keeping animals alive rather than preserving their corpses, even if it was for the benefit of science and learning.

Something that won't creep me out though is the use of smoke flares in photography and the colourful smokescreen effect it creates. I have no idea where one would find such an item except maybe a small boat but I don't really want to sabotage and risks people's lives and safety in the name of art. If I knew the location of an excellent location of forest in Winter or Autumn then maybe I would go out of my way to purchase them but my heart's not really into it at the moment. I just enjoy seeing all the different colours and the shades and shadow they create when used.

Witch's Magic

I'm getting back to my usual self: adoring my long black hair and dreading getting it cut on Sunday, finding photographs that have an eerie vibe to them and getting inspired to wear all black again. I would want to burn candles at the moment but my mother is home and still thinks that at the age of eighteen I'm likely to burn down the house with all the loose paper about in my room- so that's why I mainly stick to burning it in the lounge room. Still, I've fallen in love with the smell of Cherry blossom and the Osaka inspired scented candle, it's a shame that I've almost burn it all away but I guess that gives me an excuse to buy some more in different scents and flavours to brighten up my room.

Today I finally received my American Apparel blouse in white and I'm looking forward to wearing it under a large black and loosely knitted jumper. I love the appeal of black lace and spindly black knits- it's like looking at strong black spider webs strung by monstrous arachnids. While I can't easily replicate the orange glow of the lighting behind this girl, the silhouette effect with a bare and strung crochet top would be a nice idea. I'm mainly attracted to the idea for the dark hair and dark clothes underneath, it reminds me of old fairy tales and witches dancing under a full moon to perform sacred rites, or so author Terry Pratchett will have me believe.

I've always had a mild fascination with glass bottles including the orange bottle of iodine, that is until I sliced my skin open and actually had to use its stinging contents to keep my wound clean every day for about a week. Once I even dug up a small glass bottle in my backyard, but I broke it when washing it under the tap and getting rid of all the dirt. In retrospect I really should have been a lot more careful with such a precious item, I can't exactly remember the shape correctly but it was about the size of my hand. I had replaced it a few months ago with a glass bottle, perfectly round and thick as a gift from the Tim Burton exhibition at ACMI in Melbourne but I gave that away to my boyfriend since he lent me the DVDs of the creative genius before we were going out.

I've looked down on people who aspired to become artists throughout high school always thinking of it as unsteady and unpredictable endeavour but I sort of want that freedom and flexibility of lifestyle. I'm not sure how I'll take to the 9-5 grind day in and day out and after seeing photographs of Olympia Le-Tan's studio space I wish I could just do what I felt like each day, drawing this and finishing off that and colouring in bits and pieces. I'd love to be able to create so many different textures with the mere flick of my risk as well as command colours and make them melt into each other but I always press too hard into the paper and scratch it deeply. Besides, hands can be surprisingly hard to draw and I've never really gotten good at drawing people. With the slightest mistake in detail I feel guilty about botching someone's face I'm attempting to draw.

The images you're clapping your eyes on have come from the blogspot of Bloodmilk Jewellery their banner reading 'Supernatural Jewels for Surrealist Darlings', I was at a loss for what images I could to pull together a gold old fashioned spooky post that emanates dark magic and the forbidden arts so I may be a tad unoriginal. I highly suggest you check out their blogspot as well as their Etsy store as well if you're interested in dark silver jewellery, thick with oxidation as well as obsidian stone and the occasional rose gold piece.

I'm really adoring studio spaces for jewellery and fashion geniuses, if I'm not careful I may just sell a lot of my possessions to clear out space in my room for the same minimalist impression. Or that may just give me the opportunity to collect all of the same thing or mature more in my taste in decorating my room as well as my own appearance and body.

I could never hope for such a dark and moody effect in my room as this, while I have been after some vintage frames I haven't yet taken the initiative to explore second hand shops properly. I like the spooky Polaroid films in the background as well as the motifs of eyes, triangles, arrows and ghostly hands. The last book I read had a ghost in it but it was more an excuse for the hero and heroine to knock boots together and for him to protect her; that's what i get from picking a romance book at random off the spiral rack but I was trying to find the least ridiculous cover possible. I should try and read something that's properly frightening with actual ghosts, the closest I've gotten is finishing Frankenstein which I actually enjoyed unlike every other person in my Literature class.
 

Seeing this makes me miss the days away from home when I was with my friends from high school and fooling around on the beach. Though we did climb around on the nearby rocks turned into islands by oncoming tide returning in, we never wore out best clothes or were perfectly silhouetted in out photographs. I don't think I know of anyone who has fingers that long and frail in real life, when I was born my mother knew I would have long fingers as a baby but the photograph seems to really accentuate long and thin fingers. They must be topped off with thin and pointy fake nails for extra emphasise.

I could turn on the air-conditioner to keep myself company but I usually feel guilty using it when it's just me on my own. I might need it if I found something so abominably furry to wear on my sleeves though, maybe I'll just wear little clothing and plain cropped camisoles and top while the weather is so hot looking like a wild fairy rather than a witch weighed down in black. So many options and it seems so little motivation to do any of it.

Although the last few images have all been from the same set, they have distinctly different moods just from changing the lighting and angle. Since I take my own photographs I'm not so keen to move about in location or change the position of my tripod once I've found something that works. Changing location isn't so much of a difficult task once I have a rough idea of what each shot looks like from certain heights. Even though all the images are not taken from the same position and have varying angles they all look the same and that's something I'd like to achieve when I finally try to construct my own outfit posts.