"Villa Earrings"

Christina Goodman

" I notice and render the details- whether from old master paintings or from nature. They become the jewels for my wearable pieces."

Born in Italy to American parents, Christina Goodman spent her childhood near Washington, D.C. and later traveled back to Italy to study art history. Renaissance art and the beauty of nature infused her artistic development, leading to her line of hand-painted jewelry. Goodman tries to capture the jewel-like luminosity of classical paintings, in miniature.

These wearable miniatures are individually hand-painted using extremely fine brushes and a magnifier. Each piece is made out of wood or cast resin from an original design. The pieces are oil gilded with 22k gold leaf, then painted in acrylics. Each piece is signed, dated and varnished, then incorporated into a jewelry design.

Christina attended Colorado College and the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she received her B.A. She moved to New York and studied fashion design, working for several years as a decorative artist specializing in gilding and painted finishes. Workshops in traditional gilding and painting techniques helped develop her approach, but the miniature aspect of her work was self-taught.