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Conversation Pieces Portland designer Allison Ullmer ups the ante on statement jewelry.
If an obsession to create can run in the blood,
Allison Ullmer has the right genetic makeup: her lineage includes an engineer father, rocket-scientist grandfather, and inventor great-grandfather. But a pivotal trip to Italy in high school is what led Ullmer to her own creative vocation, jewelry design. Exploring Venice one afternoon, she spied a Murano glass bead necklace in a shop window. Something about the object drew her back to the shop multiple times over the course of her visit. When she returned stateside, her infatuation kicked off an exploration into jewelry design that took her from the University of Oregon’s School of Fine Arts to an MFA in metalsmithing from SUNY New Paltz in New York. Finally, in late 2013, Ullmer launched AU—“a jewelry business that revolves around exceptionally made, designcentric, heirloom-quality statement work,” as she puts it. Ullmer’s major muse is the outrageous, over-the-top ornamentation of the Baroque period—objects that are “so beautiful they’re almost grotesque.” She obsessively collects reference images, “taking patterns from every source
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I can find—wallpaper, carpet, cornices, books, you name it,” she says. “Then I amalgamate these designs into other patterns. My copier gets a workout.” Her fall–winter 2014 collection, Reveal, made her inspirations wholly modern, mixing historical patterns with organic objects such as pieces of loofah cast in gold. Ullmer is hard at work on her next collection, which will be released in summer 2015. To realize her ambitious new designs, the designer is flexing her stone-carving skills, a talent she picked up while studying in Florence in 2004. She’s currently prototyping the new pieces, some of which will feature knotted gold snake chains embedded in raw chunks of gem-quality cola and green quartz. Cutting and carving stone is painstaking but rewarding work. “It’s quiet, reflective, and meditative,” Ullmer says. “It takes planning and understanding of each singular stone, and it requires an acute concentration that can both drain and inspire me. It is some of the most satisfying work I do in the studio.” Soon her labors can be your reward.
STYLED BY Julia Platt-Hepworth
Written by COURTNEY FERRIS : Photographed by CULLY WRIGHT