kishu vases maya selway

They look just like a light and simple set of line drawings – something you might doodle out in a few moments. But then you see what is in them, and have to wonder just how hard they were to make.

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kishu vases maya selway linework

Maya Selway, trained in silver smithing and jewelry making, takes an artistic approach augmented by a little physics to create the effect, carefully balancing the weight at the bottom and throughout to make each container stable. “I worked a long time to get the balance just right,” she says.

kishu vases maya selway optical illusion

While many of her necklaces, rings and other pieces are quite conventional, these items suggest she is moving beyond her educational experience and into lovely new directions. The elegant, painterly line work definitely makes you do a double-take when you realize the flowers poking out of these seemingly two-dimensional drawings are very real, and very 3D. Clearly, they make the most striking impression when placed against a light colored background, and it’s fun to imagine having the whole collection on a shelf.

kishu vases maya selway metal

In designs like these, the details are everything, and mistakes impossible to hide. Look closely and you can see the vase even has a small water-holding depression at its base, adding a beautifully bare functional minimum to the piece. Her jewelry is worth checking out, too!

“The patina of a well-loved wooden dining table. The sun-bleached edge of a velvet curtain. Maya is inspired by the enduring quality of objects around her – the signs of time passing and the marks of human touch. The poetry of the everyday.”

“As well as interpreting this poetry, these moments, into the permanence of gold and precious stones, Maya’s ideas often form when hearing the stories behind a client’s jewelry during the commission process. The power of memories held within inherited treasures, tales of gems lost or damaged, and accounts of the lives of women past-and-present are all recalled through well-loved jewels.”