Claire Kahn’s beaded jewelry exhibited at Patina

Four bracelets by Claire Kahn are made with various combinations of Miyuki glass beads, tourmaline, garnet, turquoise, sapphire and 24k gold- plated glass beads. (COURTESY PATINA GALLERY)

Growing up with parents who valued both artful design and meticulous craftsmanship, Claire Kahn naturally applies both in her fine-art jewelry. To create her extraordinary “snakes,” ropes and embellished circles, she strings tiny Miyuki glass beads because their uniform size permits distinct margins and a strict delineation of pattern. Her craftsmanship is so exacting that it can take a day to crochet just a few inches.

In an artist’s statement accompanying the solo exhibition of her work opening today at Patina Gallery, Kahn talked about her fascination with transitions, which she called “the edge,” the moment when change occurs. In the patterns she creates, one element segues into another, transitioning smoothly and evolving subtly. “It starts one way and ends another and getting there … there’s a mathematical beauty, a series of numbers that so elegantly fall into place,” the artist said. “When the numbers are elegant, I know that it will be beautiful.” Kahn added that she loves progressions and the logic that informs them.

“The transitions have to planned,” she said. “I cannot work spontaneously. It is like Ikat weaving. The pattern is locked into the beaded thread.

“The conceptual part happens while I’m stringing,” she added. “It is a marriage of medium and design; the medium is completely informing the design I make.”

A life of design

For Kahn, design is not something peripheral or separate; it is intrinsic to life. “Design gives life shape and order,” she said. Kahn is the product of the marriage of Matt Kahn, professor emeritus at Stanford University, who taught nearly all the art disciplines in his 60-year career there, and Luda Kahn, a textile artist and weaver of tapestries. Her father also was a consultant with Eichler Homes, the developer of Modernist houses in California during the 1950s and ’60s. She grew up in an Eichler home. In 1977, she received the distinguished Humanities Award. From 1977 to 1984, Kahn worked in the San Francisco offices of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill architects, where she developed graphic design, interior and exterior treatments. Among her projects were the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and the Southeast Financial Center in Miami. Since 1985, she has designed water features. As executive designer for Wet, formerly Wet Design, Kahn has designed innovative fountains worldwide. Projects include The Los Angeles Music Center, Gas Company Tower in Los Angeles, Barcelona World Trade Center, Columbus Circle in New York, Beijing Finance Street, The Port of Los Angeles, and The Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nev.

In addition to her jewelry, Kahn’s studio work includes both two- and three-dimensional installations for select residential and commercial environments in this country. Media and treatments include painting and constructions using topographic relief. The interaction of color and pattern is the focus of her work.

Today, Kahn creates woven and crochet beadwork using a range of materials from glass to stone, fiber and metal. Each piece can be 40 or more inches long. Necklaces can be doubled-up or tripled. Portions of a given piece can be worn to emphasize a favorite passage in the work. Patina Gallery is the only exhibitor of her jewelry worldwide. Both Claire Kahn and her father, Matt, will attend the reception today, which will be preceded by a gallery talk by Claire Kahn at 4 p.m.

Snake patterns

The patterns in Kahn’s work are almost always those of snakes: necklaces mimicking the diamondback patterns of western rattlesnakes, bracelets echoing the color-into-color shading of pythons. “Snakes,” Patina media relations director Kim Alderwick pointed out, “are among the most ancient of mythological and cultural symbols, and depictions of them are some of the oldest of all human creations. For those willing to look closely, the peculiar beauty of snakes is a richly fascinating miracle of design.

“Snakes figure prominently in the creation stories of indigenous cultures all over the world and occupy a unique place in the human psyche,” Alderwick added. “Perhaps the reason that snakes are so compelling is that they represent a beautiful perfection of design, a unique efficiency that few other animals express. It was a snake that tempted Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Life.” Each Kahn necklace, Alderwick said, “is a temptation unto itself”- hence the name of the exhibit.