reviews > Chicago, IL

Sandra Peterson makes jewelry from bits and pieces of metal that would otherwise go to waste. Most of her freeform pendants, bracelets, and brooches revel in a neo-expressionist eighties aesthetic that eclipses their common origins, hiding it behind elaborate abstract squiggles and colorful stones. But a series of simple, minimal cuffs proclaim their previous life as soda cans and radiator grilles, thereby speaking eloquently and critically about both the need to reuse the tons of material we constantly waste and the unexpected beauty of doing so. Here Peterson reveals a kind of Midas touch, able to turn junk not into gold but rather the stuff normally made out of gold.

—Lori Waxman