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Suzanne Vasaeli creates one-of-a-kind jewelry using found objects, stones and waxed linen. She brings a strong sculptural sensibility to her work, constructing spatial relationships between the objects and their settings, enhancing each while creating a balanced whole.

Suzanne’s interest in the natural world began early.  When her family went camping, Suzanne would collect objects on hikes and in the campsite.  She remembers picking up driftwood and examining it from different angles until an animal shape would appear to her.  To this day, she keeps a “duck” to remind her of that earlier artistic endeavor.

In high school, Suzanne discovered that she could lose herself in her art.  She spent hours drawing in pen and ink, and pencil.  She found portraiture particularly interesting.  Creative knotting became a passion.  She incorporated found objects, stones, seashells, and driftwood into her large-scale, knotted wall hangings. Thousands of knots made up her abstract designs.  At the same time, Suzanne was creating intricately knotted jewelry.

Suzanne began taking college classes in various art media, including graphic design.  She felt the power of graphic design’s ability to use fewer lines to convey more meaning.  Suzanne’s work in watercolor used her graphic design sensibility to study the lines in simple everyday objects.  When she began to paint floral studies, she looked more at the underlying structure of the flower than at the figurative aspect of the flower itself; eventually they became less recognizable as blooms and more studies of their intrinsic forms.

Always Suzanne is paying attention to the materials around her, using them to create art.  Suzanne might spot an object while on a hike or while she’s waiting at an intersection while riding her bike.  She sees the value in the form of objects that would be otherwise overlooked.  She takes great pride in not having to rely on “bling bling” objects to anchor her pieces but instead using something discarded and incorporating it into something of value.  In her jewelry, she likes to contrast the rudeness and roughness of these found objects with the refinement of their settings in her art.

Looking at an object’s form, she can foresee where it will be placed in a piece.  She begins her jewelry with this focal point, and works out from there.  She is also interested in how the linen string falls outside the knot.  Her attention to her jewelry’s relationship with the physical body– the placement of the central drop to the collarbone or the weight ratio between the clasp and the focal point to the wrist’s flex point– makes Suzanne’s jewelry truly wearable sculpture.

Suzanne has come full circle to create wall hangings. A piece of driftwood serves as the pivotal point for her Nature Altars, dictating how she will assemble the pieces.  The wall hangings incorporate found objects and stones.  Instead of focusing on the complexity of thousands of knots as in her earlier pieces, Suzanne has adopted a new minimalist approach to the knots.  They serve to enhance the materials and the composition of the entire piece.

“I’m trying to create more appreciation for nature in a micro-environment, that environment being my art pieces.  I want to inspire people to see the overlooked and discarded objects in their lives.”

Suzanne was born and raised in Los Angeles.  She has spent her life observing her environment.