Posts Tagged ‘jewelry’

City girls don’t like to get greasy

Thursday, November 20, 2008

recycleabike Recycle a Bicycle teaches young people that bikes are awesome and shows them how to fix them when they break.  One way the program raises money is via sales of jewelry made of old bike chains.  Funy enough, these tough chick accessories grew from girly origins.

chainbracelet1

According to today’s Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Several years ago, Recycle-A-Bicycle received a small grant for science and technology. [Former bike mechanic and founder Karen] Overton used the grant to start an after-school program for middle school-aged girls to come into the shop and build bikes. “But the girls came in and rebelled,” she said. “They didn’t want to get greasy.”

Around the same time, a man, whom Overton nicknamed “John the jewelry man,” used to come into Recycle-A-Bicycle and ask to look through the small parts bin, taking various pieces that he used to make jewelry. Seeing a way to get the girls learning (and not greasy), Overton asked him to teach her how to make jewelry out of bicycle parts.

Who are these prissy girls?  I’m kind of disappointed to read that they don’t like to get dirty.

Recycling Barbie

Thursday, November 6, 2008

arm I just discovered Margaux Lange‘s whimsical and slightly disturbing jewelry made of Barbie (and Ken) parts via a Cool Hunting post.  These darling pendants fashioned from torsos and boobs take me back to the third grade when my best friend Miriam and I spent enormous amounts of time telling each other raunchy stories, always with the main characters of Barbie and Ken.  We composed the stories during lunch, then used our dolls to act out the scenes at my apartment after school when I was FINALLY allowed to have a Barbie of my own.

At first, my capital F feminist mom didn’t want me to have a plastic idol to self-loathing and poor body image, but I managed to get around the ban when my dad’s best friend (king of the innapropriate comments and gifts) got me a Western Winkin’ Barbie.  She had a white bedazled cowboy hat and I could depress a button in her back that made one blue eylid shut.  Unfortunately, after a while, the winking eye ceased to reopen.  I think we even took her to the doll hospital, but alas, WWB ended up in the trash.  If only I’d known all the postpunkpostfeminist possibilities, I might have saved the doll to reuse the parts.

eyering

Images ripped from the artist’s site.


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