“Oh, look this trash!”
Alicia Piller flitted giddily around her Inglewood live-work studio holding resin-coated balls of debris, displaying small fragments of fossils, and pulling out plastic trays filled with random objects organized by color.
The entire assortment is part of their eclectic jewelry arsenal. She groups upcycled textiles, found items, donated scraps, and gemstones to create handmade wearable art that she describes as “bohemian science.”
In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glass blowers to fiber artists, creating original products in and around Los Angeles.
Piller juxtaposes opals, garnets, and pearls with less conventional materials, such as tile shards, snakeskin, chunks of lava from a trip to Iceland, and bullet casings, all held together with strips of leather or vinyl. Lately he's been working with 3D printed scraps that his friends, a pair of costume-based performance artistsHe began to deliver them in giant garbage bags.
“I'm always thinking about some aspect of recycling,” he said, “seeing the value of these things we consider 'garbage.'”
One wall of his studio is lined with metal shelves filled with containers and boxes labeled “clay,” “metal,” and “waste.” The room is packed, but well-kept.
“There's a little bit of a hoarding mentality,” Piller laughed, “but I wear he!”
1. Necklaces with seashells, gemstones and recycled printed plastic. 2. Alicia Piller shows off her handmade ring. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
From their “controlled chaos” emerge intricate, ornate and unique necklaces, earrings, brooches and rings. While Etsy is its main retail center, having previously sold its wearables at the Craft Contemporary Museum in Los Angeles and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. He has also provided talent for the likes of Phylicia Rashad, Jill Scott and Ciara.
His creations wink at nature, sometimes skew extraterrestrial, and have Afrofuturist undertones. One pendant evokes the sea with its swirl of mother-of-pearl, spiraling seashells and rivulets of pale gray leather arranged on a piece of bleached coral. A crystal-embellished necklace is reminiscent of a pair of Blue Morpho butterfly wings. And a jasper-inlaid pin looks at first glance like a Ghanaian mask.
The undulating layers and microcosms that make up the signature “biomorphic” look of her jewelry also extend to her artistic practice.
Piller received an MFA from Cal Arts and now teaches sculpture as an adjunct professor at UCLA and UC Irvine. His maximalist mixed media artwork has shown in Track 16 (the Los Angeles gallery that represents her), as well as institutions throughout Southern California, including the Brick and the Orange County Museum of Art. Both the Hammer Museum and the California African American Museum have pieces by her in their permanent collections. Next summer, he will unveil a new monument as part of the West Hollywood program. Outdoor art public art program.
In his studio, multiple towering sculptures are placed in cardboard and bubble wrap, while others (works in progress) sit on pedestals, lean against walls, or hang from the ceiling. There's a stark contrast between these 9-foot-tall pieces and their smallest brands, a pair of one-inch earrings. But going from the massive to the minute comes naturally to her.
Alicia Piller represents a portrait in her studio.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
“It's about the microscopic and the macro,” he explained. “I like being able to see the smallest detail and then let it expand out into the cosmos. I'm constantly thinking about those two scales and where we fit between those scales.”
While he addresses such important issues as police brutality and climate disasters in his large-scale works, making wearable devices provides solace.
“Jewelry is a much freer, more fun form compared to more serious things that feel heavy to me,” she said. “It's not always full of activism and all these ideas about humanity and the world. It's more of a joyful and less stressful task.”
And he added: “I also love to decorate myself with the things I make.”
This has been like this since childhood.
During the studio tour, the artist pulled out a piece of bent brass wire to spell her name, a souvenir from when she was 12 years old. She has kept all kinds of memories from her adolescence, such as beads she made from rolled up magazine pages or pieces of colored clay. Her future as an artisan was a foregone conclusion.
Photos of Piller's maternal ancestors line the edges of this textured necklace, which features a pair of beetles in the center.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Growing up in Chicago, Piller and his mother performed as clowns at company birthdays and picnics. From ages 7 to 14, his job was to create balloon figures for partygoers, sculpting skills that would come in handy. She gained an appreciation for nature and anthropology through mother-daughter fishing trips and periodic visits to the Field Museumwhich focuses on natural history. Her affinity for biology comes from her father, who attended medical school when she was young.
“I had all these books around me that had the insides of bodies,” he recalls, “so there was a fascination with the inside.”
Piller studied anthropology and painting at Rutgers University and made jewelry in her spare time. During breaks, she worked in a Chicago bead shop, where she learned about global jewelry-making practices. After graduating in 2004, she moved to Manhattan and spent her weekends selling hand-painted accessories and clothing from a sidewalk table. He later moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he worked in a store selling fossils, minerals, and semi-precious stones.
“That's when I really understood that in all these materials there is a spiritual side, an energy,” he said. “There is a beauty in the fusion of all these materials together.”
Piller moved to Inglewood in 2019. When asked if Los Angeles had impacted his work like previous cities had, he said: “[My] The narration, the narrative side has come to the fore. “There has definitely been a shift in terms of thinking about how an object can tell a story.”
For example, in love with Pasadena-born author Octavia Butler, she began referencing the science fiction legend's writings and using her image, both in sculptural form (and in her 2024 piece). “Mission control. “Earth seed.”) and in it jewelry. She also began incorporating images of other inspiring women, including her maternal ancestors and Cuban-American sculptor. Ana Mendieta.
1. Earrings featuring science fiction author Octavia Butler, one of Piller's many inspirations. 2. A necklace made from a fossil crinoid stem. 3. Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta sits at the center of these necklaces. (Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
LA has also shaped its aesthetic in more literal ways.
“A big part of what I do is walking and urban hiking,” he said, noting that he has traveled to almost 20 countries. He walked from his studio to Watts Towers or west to Torrance, picking up things he found on the ground along the way and eventually transforming them. For example, a pair of jewel-toned beetles she collected made an ideal centerpiece for a regal bib necklace.
“There's a side of me that really gets excited about looking at those objects and then creating my own kind of cosmology, my own artifacts, if you will,” he said. “I'm using 'high' gemstones for 'low' plastic and elevating them all, merging them into a single work that then creates this energy, this power.”
