LL, LLC

Written by Chelsy Whittington

You came to jewelry making from a career in fine art, what made you look to jewelry as a medium and how did you go about learning about the craft?

I can’t pinpoint exactly where it started, but at some point during my graduate studies (I have an MFA in photography), I became interested in sculpture. Jewelry interested me because it is both decorative and socially integrated, and I think the marginal nature of it— is it art, is it craft, is it fashion— was also intriguing because there was a lot of room to play.

A nudge of encouragement from several friends who saw some early 3D-printed prototypes, that were more sculptural and conceptual in nature, to book a flight to Taxco, Mexico, and visit Taller William Sprating (now Casa Spratling). I knew absolutely nothing about the process of making jewelry, let alone entirely by hand. But they were very generous, and allowed me to sit with them at the bench while they worked on recreating my samples into beautiful silver pieces.

A few years later, due to covid, I started working with jewelers in New York, while building my bench and CAD skills bit by bit. I asked a lot of questions, and made a lot of mistakes. Learning bench skills really cultivated my love and understanding of the medium and material.

Can you talk a little about your creative process when designing a piece of jewelry? Do you start with an overarching theme for the season and then work backwards to the pieces themselves?

Every season or collection I begin with a board that’s usually full of post-it notes and crude sketches that have been running through my head. Then I start adding some mood or reference images to the board, often from my image archive, and going back into past seasons for ideas that never made it to fruition or had to get edited out. Maybe also some text phrases too. After sitting with this tableau, I begin to find connections and see what type of story or character emerges, and from there I’ll begin doing deeper research to sharpen the idea, and maybe at that point a theme develops. But sometimes the theme doesn’t find its shape until the very end, when you see the whole picture come together. It’s stressful, but the uncertainty is what makes it thrilling and fun.

What have been your biggest influences and inspiration in your work?

Oh wow. It’s hard to say. I’m the most inspired by anyone, regardless of medium, who demonstrates a deep commitment and discipline to their vision. In my opinion, such an important part of creativity is just patience and attentiveness.

It sounds a bit cliche, but jewelry-wise, Cartier really covered a lot of ground, technically, aesthetically, and conceptually. They have such a varied and extensive archive— they’ve done everything. But I also love, and maybe this is a bit hard to believe, Victorian-era jewelry. Less so for its aesthetic sensibility, but more so for the inventive use of repurposed materials and over-the-top, passionate, and at times, perverted excess. I also love the New Jewelry Movement from of the Netherlands, namely Gijs Bakker.

Do you have a favorite piece you've created?

Some of my favorite work is the first conceptual collection I made in 2017 which catapulted my start into jewelry. The collection, titled GETHENS, were intended to be balanced on the body in one specifically awkward position. The forms themselves were derived from different types of social infrastructure— air traffic control manuals, plans for public water systems— systems that dictate how the body moves in space, but are also not concretely visible. The idea is that the wearer has to coexist with the environmental forces that surround them, but that coexistence is also precarious, because it’s momentary.

I loved your collaboration with A--Company. What would be a dream collab for LL LLC?

Thank you, that’s so great to hear. I loved that collaboration. I love collaborating with fashion brands, because it’s an opportunity for them to extend their story into another medium, and I also get to play with clothes!

I would really love to make pieces for film and television, because costumes are directly character and plot driven. They literally are part of the story, which is not just the story of the character, but the character within that constructed world.

A lot of designers will talk about the story behind a piece but what strikes me about your work is the (excellent) sense of humor as well as the sense of place (New York). What's a perfect NYC day off to you?

Thank you! I think humor is so vital to creative work. Humor is not only a joke, but a way to create an uncertainty of understanding, which is space for meaning. But more fundamentally, I just love wit in fashion. I also grew up in New York, right in the center of Manhattan, so it’s very much a part of me.

A perfect New York day off can take so many forms. My preferred ones are unambitious. My husband and I just had one recently: First, we ran through Bronx Park, which is across the street from where we live. Then we went into the city and stopped by Absolute Bagels, which are the best bagels in New York, and I will not entertain any debate about that. Then we walked through Riverside Park, admiring the architecture and the view of the Hudson, followed by a glass of wine at Cafe Des Artistes, and ended with a burger and a bullshot at JG Melon, while chatting up fellow patrons at the bar. But then we got home early, which is my favorite, because I love to go to bed early. New York is exhausting.

Thanks Lia! You can follow LL, LLC on Instagram and shop the current selection on their website.