Today we’d like to introduce you to Anne Olsen Daub.
Hi Anne, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Creative since childhood, I’d make things from other things. An inspired Swiss red velvet dress ironed together with iron-on tape, a pair of needle nose players, beads, and wire for jewelry and I loved to paint. My parents gifted me a professional wooden paint box with oil paints and an easel one year for Christmas. When I was old enough, I was given a Singer sewing machine.
In High School I was privileged to have a kind creative and influential art teacher Mr. Lum, He taught art in many forms and encouraged me to explore. I was lucky to learn his techniques of painting, how to cast small pieces of jewelry, and solder.
I attended Fresno City College for an AA in. Fine Arts. I was accepted into Otis Parsons in downtown Los Angeles. I was a single mom. My daughter was seven at the time, Together we moved from Fresno and started our new life adventure in a tower apartment at Park LaBrea.
Even though I was an older student my experience at Otis was life changing.
Otis’s classes opened my mind to alternative ideas, to think and see uniquely.
I was accepted into the fashion design program. It was a challenge and a lot of hard work. After graduation, I worked in the fashion industry in downtown Los Angeles as a lead designer for a junior jeans company. We started in a small showroom and grew into a huge warehouse. Years later, I landed at Mattel Toys. I designed fashions for Barbie in mainline and collectors divisions and had my own unique position for some time under Ivy Ross.
My teenage daughter was my sole inspiration.
Thru meeting amazing friends at Mattel, I met sculptor Eugene Daub. We married and bought a warehouse to live and work in in San Pedro.
That time was also a life-changing and happily a new beginning.
I had not lived in a warehouse before.
It was a learning lesson in how to create and make a home with ideas of rooms with basically no walls.
Eugene and bought most of our furniture from antique and vintage shops auctions, and estate sales.
Our warehouse has been featured in several magazines. It’s been an amazing home and our own personal gallery. We are both fortunate to have light-filled studios to make art in.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Obstacle
Writing is my worst obstacle. I am a very visual person. It’s complicated for me to write about my work in detail my process and meaning.
Challenges
Yes, my biggest and most dreaded challenge is getting my work out there more.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I started my jewelry collection AOD years ago. I have a website that needs updating. My Instagram is mostly current and includes jewelry and art.
I have two beautiful curved antique showcases showing off my jewelry In a section of my studio. I love to host open studio pop-up sales yearly.
The Jewelry making side of my studio is scattered with thousands of little unique objet d art ranging from super sparkly baubles to industrial bits and construction parts, including textiles, crystals, tassels, vintage, mirrors, tons of chains, and unlikely items jewelry wouldn’t normally be made from.
In the beginning, a new piece of jewelry typically starts with an idea about shape or a specific element of focus. This almost always necessitates a solution of how to assemble or join, unlike materials. This often involves other supportive or complimentary elements like chains or other objects that support or complement the overall design.
All my pieces are one-of-a-kind.
Artwork
Painting and contemporary sculpture.
I am currently creating sculptures of oversized jewelry pieces inspired by cultural and historical elements. My upcoming show will be at the Palos Verdes Art Center opening reception is on January 27th, 2024. 6-9pm
All my new work for this show is made from curated found objects such as corrugated paper, paint, baling wire, vintage cut crystals, string, and wood, along with industrial and construction influences, elegant wire shades, and so on.
Vintage metal barrel bands have been made into giant finger rings, strands of mirrors into a long twisted necklace, six-foot-long earrings connected with words and a pair of disco balls, and old metal door hinges cling together with other unexpected elements as an over-oversize necklace. Antique mirrors with missing silver on the back allow me to use the distressed areas for background thought-provoking imagery.
Reflection, light, and shadow are essential. My work is playful and unexpected with hidden or subdued messages. I am a multi-disciplinary artist by choice.
The materials I choose to work with are not precious and allow me to stay in control and manipulate a work from beginning to end.
I can’t possibly begin to fully describe my process in writing except maybe Compose. Merge. Build..
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
EVERYDAY. 🥂
Contact Info:
- Website: Anneolsendaub.com
- Instagram: Anne_olsen_daub
- Facebook: Anne Olsen Daub
Image Credits
Anne Olsen Daub
