"Ziplace" completed

I finished my first zipper necklace titled "ziplace" a couple days ago. I found a neat zipper on some vintage Stacy Ames dress and bought it along with more junk from the junk store for only $5. I cut the zipper off and then torched what fabric was left holding the teeth together.

After that I reassembled all 420 teeth onto some welding wire. I used welding wire because I know it is very strong, shiny and it will hold its shape very well. After all the teeth were on, I found out that the wire was a bit too small and too hard for the teeth to be crimped onto. The teeth were spinning around and not holding their place. I then took them all off and found some music wire at a store which was just as hard but a little more coarse and with a larger diameter. I even sanded the wire to give it some extra grip.

I broke two teeth attempting to tighten them onto the welding wire and in the process of switching them over to the music wire, I lost some more.

I finished assembling the necklace and felt a need to close the negative space of the zipper pull. I found some interesting pieces of metal from past bronze casting operations. The metal came from the spillage of molten metal out of the molds. The pieces I found were thin and relatively flat pieces with the characteristics of wax drippings. I selected a certain section and proceeded to cut and shaped the piece and then made copper rivets drilled holes in the pull and then attached the two together. This gave the piece a more central focus point on the zipper pull instead of through it and the copper rivets also helped to compensate for the copper stop at the end of the zipper. The wire running through the necklace also happens to be part of the clasping mechanism around the back of the zipper.

"Ziplace" - (chocker necklace) re-purposed zipper and miscellaneous metals

I enjoy this idea of using the utilitarian object (the zipper) and placing it into a different context. I think the idea with the bracelets and this necklace is the idea of change. I like to think of how our society throws things away that have alternate uses or more life left in exchange for something different. I think re-purposing these as jewelry also leads to the crazy thought of zipping off body parts to exchange them for another.

I also started working on another medium-sized bowl pictures soon...

Thanks for reading :)