Purpose, Power and Immortality
Master Jeweler Stacy Haviland opens up about ancient inspirations and legacy.
This week I am sharing the work of my friend and master jeweler, Stacy Siroon Haviland. I met Stacy about 7 years ago when we were both member artists in a cooperative gallery in Topanga, CA. Stacy uses her art to go deep into the collective unconscious, linking our ancestral past to contemporary culture with homages to the decorative and expressive art movements of Paris in the late 1800’s.
Stacy’s journey down this path started with her grandmother, Siroon Mangurian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide. Siroon was a renowned opera singer, Southern California ceramicist in the 50’s and 60’s and collector of antiquities and jewelry. She acquired much of her collection from thrift stores during the Depression. Having a keen eye for quality, she would buy boxes of junk jewelry with her saved-up pennies, knowing how to find the wheat mixed in with the chaff.
Whenever Stacy visited her grandmother she would spend hours poring over her jewelry boxes. During these visits, her Grandma taught her to rub pearls with her teeth to find the grit that indicated they were natural, why gems had open backings, why different cuts of gems had more value than others, how to recognize the differences in metal purity, and most importantly, why beautiful things made by skilled hands were important to history and humanity, deserving reverence.
When Stacy was twelve, her parents took her to Europe where she encountered the next huge influence on her creative career. Though she describes her mood on this trip as “sulky adolescent” her view shifted focus when her family arrived in Portugal. There they visited the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum which houses a vast private collection of jewelry created by Art Nouveau master craftsman, René Lalique. In these galleries of Lalique’s artworks she became wonderstruck with the magical beauty of otherworldly creations unlike anything she had ever seen.
While we often think of Lalique as the Art Deco master of exquisite luxury crystal and glass objets d’arts, he started his career working as jewelry apprentice to Parisian master bijoutier, Louis Aucoc. In 1885, Lalique opened his own studio in Paris. At this time, Parisian cafes and galleries were brimming with Symbolist Art inspired by mythology, dreams and mysticism.
To this zeitgeist Lalique added his own organic and lyrical voice with designs that included archetypal animals, sinuous plants and flowers, nymphs, dragons and mermaids. By 1890, a new dynamic and fluid aesthetic emerged which was dubbed Art Nouveau (“New Art”.) Lalique’s dramatic designs, flowing forms and mythic narratives fanned the naturalist and mystical muses of this period. The materials he used were selected more for their intrinsic power than their monetary value. Thus you will find in his creations mother-of-pearl, enamel, glass, ivory, and horn combined with precious gemstones and metals, the latter being used only if they enhanced the light, color and beauty of the compositions.
Lalique focused as much attention on the designs of the chains attached to his pendants as he did on the pendants themselves. One of the first things I noticed about Stacy’s necklaces were the chains. She hand-makes each link of each chain herself, which imbues her pieces with a sense of permanence and connection to earlier days of master craftsmanship.
From that girl of 12 to today, Stacy’s goal in life has been to create beautiful, legacy artworks that would carry in their DNA the meaning and power she invests in them. But Life (capital “L”) took her on a round-about journey that led her away from this goal for a number of years. During this time she had a career as a middle school teacher, then a full-time mom. Crisis struck when her daughter, at the age of 5, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, collapsing her world into a microcosm of child health care.
The rigors of caring for a critically ill child are emotionally taxing and exhausting. To combat the anxiety that loomed between the hours of administering the night-time blood testing and insulin shots, she took to making small pieces of jewelry at the kitchen table. These peaceful moments of creative immersion opened a door to another world. Perhaps it was because of her grandmother’s collections, or René Lalique’s intriguing fascination with mystical mythology, or her own feelings of helplessness in the face of her daughter’s illness, but over time, Stacy found herself drawn to making earrings, rings, necklaces and bracelets that rekindled ancient memories of when we wore such things as amulets and talismans. As she says, “Jewelry was created to give the wearer power.”
Stacy only uses organic materials, because, as she says, “man-made materials have no soul and are bereft of magic. I want to make beautiful objects that nod to the ancients, to their symbology and mythology. When I see someone wearing my jewelry I feel my life’s purpose has been achieved. I feel understood, honored and just a teeny bit immortal knowing my creations will live long after I’m gone.”
“Create something that has never been seen before”- René Lalique
Stacy’s shop is named Pippinhill Jewelry after her father’s boyhood home in New Jersey. You can find more about Stacy and her jewelry by connecting, liking and following her at these links:
Website: http://www.pippinhilljewelry.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/stacy.haviland/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pippinhill
