ASDF DESIGNER INTERVIEWS -- Paige Martin (KLUMPA DESIGN)

A professionally trained dancer, and Zero Balancing instructor, now producing charming, and conceptual rings with organic sentiment, Paige Martins' ingenious statement pieces shape a distinctive image for the person wearing them. Using wood as the primary medium, Martin draws from cultural influences, and artistic periods to create CodeName: KLUMPAs' sculptural rings. The collection of rings ranging from size, detail, and texture gives the KLUMPA customer not only a lasting and functional work of art, but inevitably owning a piece that they will forever be remembered for.

ASDF: Where are you originally from?

PM: I came to NY from Texas. I had come during my youth to study Dance and so ended up at NYU, but only for a semester, after High School. I had a pretty heavy dance career, I’m still in it actually, and then I began working as an apprentice to an Osteopath and this led me to the Zero Balancing work.


ASDF: Why did you decide to go into jewelry design?

PM: I had always made objects of various sorts. Usually they entailed found items. Eventually I made a wooden ring from a piece of driftwood I had picked up at the beach, and I felt I had found the perfect jewelry. I was so inspired by the different possibilities, I just kept making them.


ASDF: How is the final product of one of your pieces conceptualized?

PM: Since I had never really worked with wood tools before, I would imagine a ring and then have to figure out how to make it. In the beginning, I was carving them entirely by hand, with a mat knife. Mostly though, they all started as a simple block shape, which I thought was just sort of perfect, and then I would conceive of additions to that shape.


ASDF: Why is wood a significant material for your rings?

PM: I don’t know why exactly, but I just feel like it’s the most lovely material to wear. Why would you wear metal when you can wear wood? Having wood on your finger means you’re wearing a tree.


ASDF: Is the organic element of your pieces a result of your life as a yoga/zero balance
instructor?

PM: My rings have only as much to do with my other stuff as I have to it all.


ASDF: Where and how are your rings produced?

PM: My studio is in my apartment actually. I have a separate room set up with my tools and junk and more junk.


ASDF: Where did the name Paige Martin: code name Klumpa originate?

PM: My first boyfriend gave me Code name KLUMPA. It was sort of a nick-name. I used it as my bio while performing, for years. He is like my brother now. He and his wife are both artists and just moved to Glasgow.


ASDF: What inspires your creative process?

PM: I’m into a certain aesthetic that includes primitive elements, classical design, stuff made of bakelite, all things Moroccan, objects from the 1930’s, and big, too big to wear, jewelry.


ASDF: Could you explain yoga/zero balancing and the effect it has on you?

PM: Zero Balancing is a form of bodywork designed by Dr. Fritz Smith, a doctor of Acupuncture and Osteopathy. The technique involves gentle traction through the whole body and touch to the bones and at the joints. This creates a balanced situation throughout the skeleton, which in turn releases tension in the muscles and brings ease to the joints. The body then adjusts or re-organizes, both structurally and energetically and then the change is both precise and comprehensive. It feels really good and has a mind/body effect.


ASDF: The pictures on your website is an amusing and inventive arrangement of random objects and hands used to display your rings. Why did you choose that particular approach?

PM: My site arrangement is made according to how I display the rings. I’ve always given them a context to live in. Right now, the rings come on a ceramic finger, but each finger is customized.


ASDF: At the moment your focus is on rings. Is there any other facet of the jewelry industry you would like to tap into?

PM: I am more interested in entering into Housewares. There are plenty of designers who make fabulous jewelry. I was playing around with ceramics for a while and coming up with stuff for the house I really want to get back to.

-asdf

CodeName: KLUMPA rings are sold here:
MC&Co.
57 North 6th St.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 11211

Rings can also be purchased on the website:
klumpadesign.com