Honour Your Inner Magpie

ArtLog: how can I resist?
I must enter this contest. No, really.

From the contest rules:

It’s Not Easy To Do Ugly!

Your mind and eye won’t let you go there. As research into color and design has shown, your eye and brain compensate for imbalances in color or in the positioning of pieces and objects – they try to correct and harmonize them. You are pre-wired to subconsciously avoid anything that is disorienting, disturbing or distracting.

Because of this, any jewelry designer who attempts to achieve “Ugly,” has to have enough control and discipline to override, perhaps overcome, intuitive, internally integrated principles of good design. Thus, the best jewelry designers will be those artists who can design the Ugliest Necklaces. We invite all those jewelry designers out there to give it a try.

I have actually designed an ugly necklace on purpose. It was one of my earliest pieces in the Lioness body of work. It's a political piece called "Cultural Shoplifting." I should photograph it and explain it, yah?