Jeanine Payer

A pioneer in the arena of poetry-inscribed sterling jewelry, Jeanine Payer closed the doors of her 25-year-old business as of Jan. 1, 2014. Love is where the art starts, and I am at a place in my life where, as a mother of a six-year-old, I want to put my heart and soul into raising my son. I am not sure what the future will hold, and I am keeping... the door open to possibilities regarding this work that I so love and to the poetry that inspires it. For the time, it is important for me to focus inward and on my family to create a space for future creative/artistic outlets. Jeanine grew up in California and made her initial creative connection with drawing and sculpture early in life. Raised around an eclectic cast of characters; young theatre artists, painters, dancers, set designers and writers, she remembers "sitting in the back of theaters while my mother rehearsed, working for hours on drawings and modeling clay tableaux. I was obsessed with my improvised doll house--I loved creating small sets." In the mid 80's Jeanine came to San Francisco where she studied sculpture in art school. Her intense interest in books and printed words began there. Working in a very small scale, the book form captured her creative imagination. The first jewelry pieces were inspired by the work of Joseph Cornell and photographs of children used so powerfully by Christian Boltansky along with the lush, emotionally charged autobiographical works by Frida Kahlo. In art school, Jeanine discovered jewelry design as an organic extension of her passion for small scale sculptural work. The first collection was meticulously crafted with tiny images, antique French belt buckles, beads, hand painted antique ribbons and millinery bits, many from the renowned San Francisco atelier Bell'occhio. Jeanine remembers, "My first designs were very Mad Hatter meets Hieronymus Bosch'." The addition of the hand engraved poetry furthered the power and intimacy of the designs, with Payer feeling both inspired and driven to memorialize words through the ...Read More