Tiffany Jewels Bedeck Flights of Fancy
Whimsy: An odd fancy; idle notion; whim . .
Webster’s New World Dictionary
“They’re whimsical birds !” announced fifth-grader Marissa Anshutz, peering at the trio of wackily beautiful creatures hanging out with a glittering diamond choker in a Tiffany & Co. window at South Coast Plaza.
Could’ve fooled me. But, Marissa knew this, she said, because she was a creator of one of birds, a Tiffany selection from the Color it Orange exhibit staged last month at the Art Institute of Southern California in Laguna Beach.
Annually, the institute’s support group, Designing Women, showcases the art of hundreds of local students.
On Tuesday night, 13 of the artists--all participants in the three-dimensional competition and all winners of the chance to have their works displayed at Tiffany--were invited to receive certificates of accomplishment at a buffet reception.
Watching Marissa (and fellow sweet-birds-of-youth creators Jennifer Taillon and Laurie Kidde) pose with their works was Sarina Sherwin, their art teacher from Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar.
For this project, the children began by learning about the word whimsy, Sherwin said. “The word is fun. At this age, teaching and learning should be fun. They studied the word and then learned how it could translate into color.
“Then they studied about the form and parts of a bird and were invited to use them in a whimsical manner with papier-mache. The parts could be distorted or changed but the outcome had to be something fun.”
A more serious artwork was created by 18-year-old Kirsten Ryder, a senior at El Modena High School in Orange.
“It’s a self-portrait,” said Kirsten of her glazed ceramic bust. “I worked on it an hour a day for over a month. I looked in a mirror and created what I saw in myself.
“It was important to me to streamline the head--so I streamlined my ears to my head.”
Before the bust was brought into the store for display, guests had viewed it surrounded by diamond bracelets in a Tiffany window. Ditto Jillian Levin’s artwork, a papier-mache Dalmatian, displayed with a platinum diamond pin. “I’m going to sell him,” the kindergartner said of her doggie in the window.
Her mother, Pam Levin, explained: “While it was in the window, a passerby saw the dog and wanted to buy it. So Jillian said that was all right; she’d just make another one!”
The whole event made institute president John Lottes smile. “Like Picasso said, ‘Everybody is an artist when they’re born; the challenge is to stay that way.’ ”
Also among guests: Tiffany designer Fred Chuang, a Color it Orange judge; Electa Anderson, reception chairwoman; Susan McFadden, president of Designing Women; Tiffany vice president Jo Qualls; and Color it Orange artists Kasumi Chung, Tamara Khalaf, Linus Park, Aaron Johnson, Chris Fife, Chantal Osuma and Jenny Sedo.
