The U.E.S. Journal

My New Obsession with Novelty Costume Jewelry

rebs — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:10:14 +0000

I’ve recently gone down an ebay rabbit hole, fascinated by three costume jewelry brands: Jonette Jewelry, American Jewelry & Chain and Danecraft. I started collecting a few JJ (Jonette Jewelry) pieces and am impressed with the quality of these mass produced castings. I am also baffled by the variety of whimsical and literal subject matter. An outsider studying 20th century American culture through costume jewelry would be convinced that we were obsessed with cats chasing mice and fish. I guess current internet culture does demonstrate our obsession with cats. I now work as a designer and model maker for a big jewelry company in California and I also wonder at the number of models and molds each of these companies created just dedicated to one particular theme.

The following pins depicting a cat and fishbowl were ALL MADE BY ONE COMPANY, Jonette Jewelry. I imagine every few years they felt they had to revamp this popular theme or give the consumer options within this theme. Each of these pins was available in different finishes and you can see the last one even has added color, definitely elevating the production cost. (I’m not even going to get started on the variety of cat and mouse jewelry because it’s too vast!)

JONETTE JEWELRY CAT AND FISHBOWL PINS

I like to imagine a JJ design meeting: “Those jerks at Danecraft have a cool cat couple in a car?? We’ll show them!”

It’s not just cats. Cows are thoroughly represented, as are nurses, real estate brokers, wizards, pretty much every aspect of human, animal and fantasy life. There are many other costume jewelry companies that represented these themes but I just happened to focus my ebay searches on these three.

But, back to cats. Again from Jonette Jewelry. Maybe you want a cat chasing a butterfly? Or a cat chasing a turtle? You decide! We will have a model maker carve the original model, we’ll create a mold and go into production!

Here, from American Jewelry Company and Jonette Jewelry are options if you want a cat drinking from a toilet.

Jonette Jewelry, probably my favorite of these three companies started in 1935 and ceased production in 2006. AJC existed from 1927 to 1997. Danecraft continues on and even though they have run sophisticated magazine ads over the years their website seems to have stopped evolving at HTML 2.0.

Danecraft 1978 magazine advertisement:

Danecraft’s website today:

Well, this is just the introduction to my new obsession. I’m going to do a separate post on my own budding collection of costume jewels and also share images of some of my favorites that I don’t yet own or plan to own because they’re just too silly even for me.

-Rebs

Battle of the Runts

rebs — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:24:35 +0000

The Contenders

Fight Night Highlights:

Rudy was declared the winner after Ronnie got distracted by a feather and wandered away.

8 Heads, Count ‘em! (Never before seen photos of back side of UES sculpture)

rebs — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 05:03:17 +0000

Today, after 30 years on the Upper East Side I settled in to my new home in Los Angeles. I will continue to write from here but for my farewell to the UES I am going to reveal some never before seen faces…

The building I grew up in, 4 East 88th Street, has been referred to as NYC’s finest example of neo-federalist architecture by the Carnegie Hill Neighbors Architectural Guide. Designed by Electus D. Litchfield and erected in 1922, the building features a “broken pediment” whose void, just atop the awning, is filled by a carved stone “potpourri” of heads.

No one seems to know for sure who these heads represent. It has been suggested that they are American patriots or that one is Electus Litchfield, the architect himself. I have also only read or heard the head count at four to five even though at least four are clearly visible from the street. But, lucky for me the sculpture sits in one of my family’s windows and during some recent construction I leaned out the window (over a scaffolding and set off an alarm) and photographed the heads as best I could.

There are 8 heads. They go all the way around as if the sculpture was meant to sit on a table or in a garden with all sides visible, and not up against a wall. Unfortunately, their condition has deteriorated over the years and you can see some repairs are also deteriorating. So far I have looked for Litchfield’s records regarding this building in his archives at Columbia University’s Avery Library to try to find out where he acquired the sculpture. The records for this building were not at Avery but there is a chance they could be in the archives at the Met Museum – a task for when I visit my parents in NYC or maybe a task for Christopher Gray.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you all eight heads.

1. The Topper…

2. Maybe George Washington.

6. Yes, 5 and 6 are different heads.

Me with the Topper.

Ballet, Eamonn’s, Aphra Behn Trunk Show

rebs — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:10:48 +0000

Thursday, October 4, 2012
I’m moving to LA in January so I’m going to try to actually journal these last few months as a New Yorker and Upper East Sider.

Lost on the subway.

Went to Lefferts Gardens to have jewelry photographed by Alex Crowe. Got on 5 train going home, ran across platform at Atlantic Ave to get 4 train thinking it would be faster, got absorbed in the free Metro paper (yesterday’s weirdly having been guest edited by Richard Branson), arrived at last stop in wrong direction, Crown Heights. Had to take 4 all the way back to 86th Street, got very far in Metro paper because I was afraid to play boggle on my iphone because of all of the recent iphone muggings, especially because of the hypodermic needle mugger even though they caught him.

…

Still finding great architectural details.

6pm: Walked from 88th to 75th on Park Ave, excited to notice new architectural details. It happens often because so many buildings have scaffolding up for weeks or months at a time for repairs, when the scaffolding comes down there’s a discovery. I didn’t take pics bc I was in a rush, I remember 885 Park lookin’ fine.

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Awkward Penthouse Moment.

Went to trunk show for Aphra Behn at penthouse apartment on Park Ave. Got there a little early, elevator took me up, wandered into apartment, no one there and no apparent trunk show. Afraid I was in the wrong place. An old man in tuxedo and sneakers walked in from the terrace with a cane. I asked him if Jelena (the designer) was there, he said he didn’t know and walked away. He didn’t seem disturbed by my presence. Eventually the trunk show arrived and I tried on some beautiful shirts and drank champagne. Their shirts are especially great because each size comes in two chest sizes for small boobs or big boobs and they are very nice shirts to begin with.

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Ballet.

Met my dad at the ballet, New York City Ballet. Always meant to write about the ballet more. Last night was the first performance in our subscription this season, next one not til 2013! Last night was a special where every seat was $29. How did they do this? Was looking through the program to see if that awesome petite woman Clotilde Otranto was conducting and couldn’t find any conductor credits, then realized there were only pieces on the program that didn’t require an orchestra! Three pieces were set to duets like two pianos or a violin and piano, and then of course Jerome Robbins’s “Moves” which is silent. It was actually one of the better programs that’s been in my subscription for a while.

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Duo Concertant

Music by Stravinsky (Arturo Delmoni on violin, Susan Walters on piano), Choreography by Balanchine, Premiered 1972, Dancers last night were Sterling Hyltin, Robert Fairchild.

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Duo Concertant was good, I always love the second movement with the dramatic lighting. Don’t have much to say about it today.

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After the Rain (excerpt)

Music by Arvo Part (Arturo Delmoni on Violin, Nancy McDill on piano), Choreography by Christopher Wheeldon, Premiered 2005, Dancers last night were Wendy Whelan, Craig Hall.

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I LOVE After the Rain. Wendy Whelan is incredible, Craig Hall was a great, solid partner, sorry Craig, I just can’t take my eyes off of Wendy. The music is slow, pretty, pulsing, constant, the dancers’ movements beautiful and constantly interesting. I love Christopher Wheeldon. Other younger guest choreographers I’ve seen at New York City Ballet seem to think you have to have a ton of crazy stuff going on to hold the audience’s interest. Like five different dancers doing really fast different intricate things at once on the stage and it just all cancels itself out, dulls my senses. Anyway, I had to look it up, Wendy Whelan is 45 and can do anything with her body. I am scared for when she retires. Last year when I saw her perform she seemed at her PEAK. Couldn’t tell last night, maybe she seemed more physically vulnerable but it suited the piece so what do I know. I still miss Damion Woetzel who retired even though he could still dance anything. Is it just nostalgia like for the old New York Knicks, or are we kind of lacking these ballet superstars at the moment? I love a lot of the dancers at NYCB but will any become bigger than life for me? I hope so!
Here is After the Rain on youtube with the same cast, looks like someone bootlegged it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9IgXpa7siM

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Moves: A Ballet in Silence

Choreography by Jerome Robbins, premiered 1959 Italy, 1984 NYCB.

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When the certain goes up there are ten dancers in a row on the stage. The woman sitting next to me loud-whispered (and I can only hear her now as Linda, the mom from Bob’s Burgers): There are so many of them! What, are there, ten??

Later, when the movement begins with Rebecca Krohn lying on her stomach and she suddenly lifts her upper body up just like a Cobra the Linda woman sitting next to me again loud-whispered: Oh my god!

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Moves was terrific. If I were a ballet dancer, especially a male dancer, I think I would want to dance Robbins all the time. It looks so fun! There was a lot of audience-coughing, but I’ve realized there is ALWAYS audience-coughing, you just can’t hear it when there is an orchestra or loud music. We’re like pugs, we can’t just sit in a big germy air-conditioned room without hacking up some air or stuff every once in a while. Also, I wonder if the dancers know the soundtrack to Moves by heart, like the sounds of the feet, “squeak, thimp…thump…pitter patter pitter patter, squeak…squeak”

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Rebecca Krohn and Anne Hathaway are resemblant. Just saying.

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There was a dancer I wasn’t that familiar with who I really enjoyed, saw big potential but some lack of control in the end of her movements but BIG potential. Trying to figure out who it was, she was wearing a burgundy leotard, it might have been Brittany Pollack looking at headshots on the NYCB site. She’s a corps dancer and they only have headshots of principals in the program so I coudln’t figure it out while there and I have a terrible memory for faces.

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Intermission: Toblerone. $5.50.

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Hallelujah Junction

Music by John Adams, Choreography by Peter Martins, Premiered 2001 Denmark, 2002 NYCB

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My expectations were low because I’m never really moved by Peter Martins’s choreography and I forgot what this was. I actually enjoyed Hallelujah Junction, music was nice, liked the stage setup with the two pianos raised in the background almost in darkness, the dancing was engaging but again did not really “move” me and I found myself thinking about which cat scratching post to buy, I’ve been looking at so many on Amazon for when I move to LA and become a full-time step-pet-parent to my boyfriend Scott’s animals. I did especially enjoy Daniel Ulbricht’s dancing, he always does the stocky strong guy entertainer parts, like a ton of jumps and turns in a row and we clap. His dancing style reminds me, at least it did in Hallelujah Junction, of when I saw the Eifman ballet from St. Petersburg, Russia at the City Center and the Russian dancers seemed very manly when they danced, not gay at all. So, I looked up in the program where Daniel Ulbricht is from, and I read “St. Petersburg…FLORIDA”.

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Eamonn’s

After the ballet I went solo by subway (my dad declined my invitation) to Eamonn’s on East 45th Street to see Rick McDonald, my favorite piano player from Bill’s Gay 90′s, play upstairs. Highlights included “It’s Too Late Baby” by Carol King and “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” And a LOT of other songs, was there til upstairs closed, felt some old Bill’s vibes returning just from the people and music and singing along and a few glasses of wine.

Attention to Detail: St Ignatius Loyola Railing in Your Face!

rebs — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:26:23 +0000

Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue.