ORNAMENT MAGAZINE Volume 23.4 2000 - Part 1

My work is a celebration of life and our journey through it, a testimony to its splendor. It is about my personal wonderment of the conception of our species. It is about forces that are held in the stars and the bodies of humanity, driving forces of life and nature. I see myself as a poet who cannot write, as Thoth the Scribe, who uses a flame for a pen. I am Hermes delivering a message as old as time. The purpose is to show micro and macro forces of nature that affect the everyday life of the being-the internal forces of love and sex as well as the external forces driving us to space exploration and divine enlightenment. My jewelry is about the love of Isis, Artemis, Mother Nature, the Gods of fertility, and the miracle of birth. I seek to possess the philosopher's stone, transforming the minds of those who view my work. I wish to give people a chance to embrace something magical inside themselves.

I see my job as being an orchestrator of light or Lux Aeternus. So my work deals with light and its manipulation. I begin with pieces of flat sheet and round wire made of gold or platinum. I hammer the pieces with a polished hammer on a polished anvil to give them strength and form. I achieve a great deal of light-play by incorporating mirrored chambers, parabolic dishes, and convex disks similar to the Sun Ra on the head of Isis. I assemble the forged elements into pieces of wearable sculpture. These microforgings are very labor-of-love intensive and are designed to stand the test of time. My aesthetic is that of natural forms such as pods, leaves, flowers, sperm, eggs, DNA, silhouettes of bodies and fluid compositions. I like to create solid liquid forms reminiscent of our original composition or opus. I find the juxtaposition of tool marked, brushed and polished surfaces to be harmonious to the eye. I also enjoy different alloys for color. I choose stones to accent my pieces but I do not want them to dominate the message of the subconscious poems I am creating. The dance of life that I document must reflect the splendor of the sun; the techniques I use are to capture the forbidden gaze into the sun.

I am inspired by fertility ceremonies, cremations, sacred shores, the geometry of the universe, Masonry and by seeing the world in its constant state of rejuvenation. I am inspired by being thirty-three in the year 2000 and being at the great pyramids of Egypt for an indoctrination into a new universal mindset. I love to study the stories of the Golem, Adam and Eve, Paracelsus Homunculas and Mozart's Magic Flute. I enjoy Lalique's Cult of the Flower and the psychedelic art of Rick Griffen.

SEVEN ALCHEMICAL KEYS PUZZLE, of eighteen karat gold and platinum; 7. 0 x 7.6 x 0.6 centimeters, 1998. Photographs; Ralph Gabriner,

Artist Wayne Werner resides in Maryland.