FEATURE STORY
 |
<Two Medieval series rings (top and center), inspired by Gothic architecture. The top ring, in 18K gold, features a moonstone, green tourmalines, lavender sapphires, and rubies. The bottom ring, in 14K gold, has a brilliant 0.73-ct. table-cut diamond surrounded by yellow diamonds and rubies. Their radiused square cross-section design helps keep the rings upright on the finger. Photo: Charles Hodges. At far left is a Seraglio ring of 18K green gold and moonstone. “Walking in the streets of Tunis, one is aware of the myriad eyes behind the carved wooden shutters -- women's eyes. This ring is a homage to the veiled, captive women of the Orient.” Photo: James L. Ballard. |
| Self-transformation is a recurring theme in Eve Afille's work - and classic art and literature her inspiration
by Andy Oriel |
What if you could take the Queen's pearl necklace and restring it with opals and moonstones? What if Matisse and Calder could collaborate on a neck collar? What if you could make a pendant in 10 shades of white for your trip to the Arctic? If you are immensely talented designer Eve J. Alfillé, then the response to all those “what ifs” is “why not?” Step into her gallery and you'll find that the lost city of Atlantis meets the tomb of Tutankhamen, and the knights of the Round Table meet the Pirates of the Caribbean. History is her canvas and she paints with colored golds in shades of peach, rose, green, yellow, and white; the stones and pearls she uses, she has collected over a quarter century of connoisseurship. But her designs are far from period pieces. Instead, with titles like Homage to Captain Nemo, Blueprint for an Empire, and Scheherazade, they evoke a particular time or place or person -- whether real or imagined -- but they do so with a playful, contemporary twist. It is that playfulness that takes her work miles away from what she calls “The Queen's Jewels”; staid, special-occasion, status-obsessed jewelry. With ongoing themes, including her Antiquities, Architecture, Organic, and Dream series, the prolific French-born artist often works through the night to make something for every taste in a bewildering variety of styles. Ideas for her high-concept pieces are gleaned from an Old School knowledge of classic art and literature, travels in the Middle East and Mediterranean, and from a childlike fascination with tales of magic, faraway places.
Oceanic, for example, is a platinum mermaid's necklace with rare Tahitian pistachio pearls that is suitable for a tres elegante night in undersea Atlantis, while Blueprint for an Empire is a more reserved gold, lapis, and carnelian brooch with an abstract map of the ancient world on its face, tailor-made to wear to any museum opening. To ensure their versatility, many Alfillé pieces feature modular designs. Homage to Matisse: Four Toys for a Wild Child is a “convertible necklace” with four different ways to wear its Calder-inspired, mobilelike components. Each part has details that provide emotional as well as physical comfort, such as hidden stones or a flip-proof design. So if your image of historical jewelry is a classic string of pearls worn by demure ladies in elegant gowns, forget it. Eve Alfillé is sifting the sands of time to bring her twisted classics to a hip new clientele. In the process, she is constantly reinventing herself. A DIFFERENT WORLD. When you walk into Alfillé's gallery in Evanston, Illinois, 20 minutes north of Chicago on Lake Michigan, one of the first things you'll notice are the oversized seahorse deities guarding a seashell-encrusted Pearl Room that would make Jules Verne proud.
Indeed, Alfillé is happiest with one foot in the present and one in the mythic past. She labels herself a “historical relativist,” explaining the term with the same attention to detail that she gives her clients. Conversing with her, you get the feeling you are collaborating on something momentous. “It came to me at the age of 16 when I first came to North America,” she says in her charming French accent. “I was struck at how little history one is aware of in daily life here. In any European country, history is much more alive.” Even at that tender age, she says she “wanted to take Americans by the collar and shake them a little bit” for their apathy. “If you look at different eras of history, you gain a perspective of where you stand now. If you accept that we are like ants on the march, then it's nice to think there is some sign of our passing.” Intensely respectful of the past, the artist believes passionately that knowledge of our collective past is the key to individual fulfillment in the present, and the evolution of her jewelry shows it. “I never look at a book and say, 'Oh, I'll do this and this.' It's just a distillation in my head. It might be Scythian, or it might evoke Greek architecture or mythology. Or it might be something I saw in a dream. Originally, I made allusions that I considered subtle, but at one point I made the decision to become more literal. Now, I push a piece as far as it will go and then pull back a little to prevent going too far. But risk is a must.”
“Growing up, I learned to use different languages to express myself in different ways,” says Alfillé. Indeed -- the former language teacher speaks 10 different languages. “With jewelry, I use different styles the way I would use different languages, to voice different expressions or certain subjects. So when people ask me to describe my style, I say, 'Which one?' I have about four or five different series, and I'll often work in several of them simultaneously to express an idea I'm wrestling with. It's kind of like playing several chess games at once.” The common thread, she says, is a particular idea that she is trying to elucidate. “I feel that creating a piece of jewelry by hand is a form of communication. You want the person who sees it to say, 'Yes, there is some kind of intelligence here,' and of course you want it to be well made. It should last for generations.” Alfillé's preference for the imagery of the past seems to connect her with a movement for multicultural jewelry, but one influence you won't see is Native American, whose “look,” she believes, should be exclusively their own. Her exclusive collection for the Ornament Gallery is more colorful than others, but not Southwestern in the traditional sense. “The first time I went to Santa Fe, I was struck by the quality of the light and decided to do a whole different collection just for the Ornament Gallery that is more with color and light than I usually do. “Mostly, I deal with themes of time and the passage of time, but in this collection I deal with a sense of place. I love the starkness of the light in Santa Fe. The vertical shadows. No other place has struck me like this, except the south of France, where I thought I might retire some day. Now I know I will never retire, but I still love to go to Santa Fe.”
“One of my many missions is to make jewelry that people will not be afraid to wear,” she says pointedly. “I have this crusade against what I call 'The Queen's Jewels,' with a capital J -- the trophy jewels that are given to a woman to display status. Most of the time, except for once or twice a year, they stay in their box. “If you start thinking about how and why jewelry evolved, it's about pleasure, about making yourself feel good, about putting a shiny object on a string around your neck and fondling it with your hands. “My work is like that, in contrast to The Queen's Jewels. It's meant to be worn, not hidden away in a drawer. You can even disassemble the components and wear them in different ways for work or for going out at night. The perceived value has to do not with the price of the diamond, but with the feelings the piece evokes. They say, 'I love life, I'm playful, I don't take myself too seriously.'” It's a constant challenge to keep her work approachable, she says, and that is part of what separates it completely from sculpture, an art she pursued for many years, until she took up jewelry 25 years ago. “I started out in large metal sculpture and was still doing small metal designs when I became interested in jewelry. So I've done a lot of thinking about what separates the two and found why you cannot translate sculpture directly into jewelry. “Jewelry is never, never, three-dimensional. It has two-and-a-half dimensions, like a bas-relief carving. My first pieces of jewelry were three-dimensional and they were horrible. They would lean at odd angles and catch on things, they would interfere with the body and I saw right away, it is a difference of function. Sculpture has so few rules that now I think it's almost self-indulgent, and too easy. “Jewelry is much more difficult. It has to be user friendly. We wrestle with the weight and dimensions of earrings and pendants and how they have to fit the concavities of different bodies, with different occupations, at different times of day. And most important, it has to fit the personalities of the people who wear it.”
“Oceanic is a necklace for the Queen of the Sea. I'm imagining her rising up from the depths of perhaps Atlantis. I've always been fascinated with sea myths, Triton and Neptune, and imaginary creatures that live at great depths. “Nymph's Necklace is a necklace of rare flat-round Lake Biwa pearls toward the front that become moonstone with a white gold centerpiece depicting Leda and the Swan from Greek mythology. I wanted this necklace to be about the state of purity or virginity -- but it has to end. The pearls transform themselves into moonstone in a sort of metamorphosis.” PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE. Just as Alfillé compartmentalizes her jewelry styles, she has also compartmentalized her gallery. First and foremost is the Pearl Room where her unbridled passion for pearls is evident in the antique lacquered chest that holds trays of pearls in every color, shape, and size from every corner of the world. It is usually the first stop when a client comes in, and quite often, they'll bring a string of pearls their grandmother gave them. “Pearls are one of my great loves, and I spend a lot of time with them,” says Alfillé. Her devotion to the material is more than just words; she is the founder of the Pearl Society, a group formed to collect and disperse information about pearls and to prevent their extinction from pollution.
While perfect round pearls are the most expensive (especially black), Alfillé says she has found that most women prefer baroque pearls, which is perhaps a metaphor for something else. “When ladies come to see me they often bring all their pearls and say, 'This was my mother's and this was my grandmother's, but let me show you the ones I really like,' and they show me a strand of baroque pearls. Each one is different and each one inspires thought.” Alfillé likes those, too, and says she will often build a piece around a particularly interesting one, going so far as to name one The Blue Queen's Scandalous Afternoon. Describing her use of pearls as whimsical, pervasive, and irreverent, she favors asymmetrical baroque pearls or double or triple mabe pearls, and the pieces are usually asymmetrical as well, as is most of her work. “One thing I've noticed is that about one person out of five must have symmetry in their jewelry, and another one out of five must have asymmetry, and you don't quarrel with them. But when the other three-fifths approach the age of about 40, they are usually willing to accept a change, and you have to be very perceptive about how much you can push them, but it's almost universal. If you suggest something with what I call 'balanced asymmetry,' they are willing to take a chance. I've led many people out of their prison -- as I call it -- this way.” With her fondness for pearls, it is perhaps not surprising that Alfillé also adores opals and moonstones. Alfillé often holds consultations in the Giotto Room (Gem Room), which looks like an old Roman ruin, and houses trays of stones from amethyst to zoisite. “The whole gallery is set up as a kind of museum,” she says. “The gem room has drawers and drawers of different gems and minerals. I find that I spend a lot of time educating people about materials, especially gemstones.” She also has a particular weakness for bicolored sapphires, and has an extensive collection that she sometimes dips into for a particular piece. “I'm very fond of fancy sapphires in all colors, especially bicolors. The Montana bicolors have a radial pattern that is wonderfully complex, with lavender and lemon yellow. “My husband asks me if I'm collecting for myself or the gallery, but it's like having a paint pot with all the different colors. Then you can mix whatever palette you want. I get bored very easily; I think that's why I like the dichroic stones like tanzanite. I've always craved complexity, and now I can finally afford it.” LIFETIME PURSUIT. While Alfillé began making jewelry 25 years ago, she has really been preparing for it her whole life. From the age of three, when she was already reading the Lives of the Great Scientists, given to her by her parents, she has been gleaning source material. Growing up in France, she recalls playing hooky from school for almost a whole year during which time she went to museums and soaked up the art and atmosphere. After moving to North America at the age of 16, she studied business and accounting at McGill University in Montreal, and went on to receive degrees in linguistics and medieval poetry from the University of Illinois. After each degree, she worked for periods as a field archaeologist in Mexico and Israel. In fact, you could say her career as a jeweler began without her even knowing it when she found an intact piece of jewelry near the Syrian border.
In subsequent digs in King Herod's kitchen in Jerusalem, she specialized in pottery restoration, working from the bottom up to reconstruct a pot and its history. The reconstruction process took a different course when she wrote her Master's thesis in Linguistics, making a linguistic atlas of the words used for the eggplant, and how they spread through the region of the Mediterranean Basin. “What I realize now is that the reconstruction process -- taking a lot of small parts and making a whole of it -- stem from a natural predisposition I have for putting things together. Learning languages, which is one of my hobbies, making jewelry, reconstructing pottery, these are all synthetic activities, not analytic. I seem to be good at working from the bottom up. Here are all the pieces, now I will make a theory to explain them.” After celebrating her 25th anniversary last year, she had indeed worked her way from the bottom up to become the consummate goldsmith, designer, and educator. In each role, she has worked to make jewelry a more expressive part of her customers lives.
In her artist's statement, Alfillé says she “searches the world for the exact pearl, the precise stone, the specific hue of metal” with which to construct her jewelry. Take that sense of perfection, add her passion for classic art and literature, and you have the recipe for the success for which she has worked so hard. “A famous French poet wrote a very beautiful poem about being an artist,” she recalls: “'To shun the easy forms, work with demanding materials that you have to pit yourself against.' That's definitely true for me.” Eve Alfillé may be contacted at her gallery at (847) 869-7920, or by sending e-mail to malfill1@aol.com. | ||||||||||||
