ABOUT THE ARTIST

Alix Bluh grew up on a family farm with parents who were professors and very artistic. Before becoming a professor Alix’s father was an avant garde painter of the 60s. As children, Alix and her three siblings were exposed to all forms of art and music and encouraged to follow their own inspiration. Her parents brought art into the elementary school they attended and started a program called Enrichment, where for two weeks out of the school year, students would only learn art and traditional crafts. Alix was also sent to an amazing camp in Maine where there was a metalsmithing studio, so, by the age of 12 she was hooked!

Alix graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a BFA in Painting in 1987, after spending a year studying at Oxford University in England and traveling through Europe the following summer. She received awards for her art well before she knew that jewelry would be the path she would follow. Her paintings and assemblage works were featured in many exhibits and galleries, including the Seoul Olympics Art Festival in 1988.

In 1989, Alix returned to London and started collecting and selling antiques as she pursued making one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces. She combined a fascination with time-worn objects with that of cutting-edge arts.

Her jewelry pieces included original tin-type photographs, pocket watch parts, and various curios. Her exploration in painting, sculpture and assemblage literally shrunk into wearable art. Alix sold her unique art jewelry in London galleries as well is at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and New York galleries.

In 1992 Alix decided to move to San Francisco, where she has been living since.  It was in San Francisco that her precious metals journey began with a rapid leap to a new business. Though the medium was new, the themes in her jewelry were true to the original inspirations in her past forays.

Reliquary pieces are a longtime fascination for Alix, where sacred objects are held in tiny boxes close at hand to honor the entity that it houses. Alix’s reliquaries, ranging from 18k gold branches, feathers, pearls and loose precious stones safely nestled under crystal have become her signature design concept.

As Alix says, “I have always been so moved by the stories found in nature, in time-worn objects, in mourning jewelry and religious reliquaries. I want to create heirloom pieces that are not about fad and fashion, but rather sentiment and timelessness.”

These lines are now widely collected across the USA and internationally. Their popularity based on the intimate and unique quality that Alix has captured. Some say the jewelry is lyrical, or even poetic, that it seems to have a secret past or a talisman power.  Jewelry has also been described as feeling sacred and magical. To Alix, each piece seems to tell a story, each collection a new chapter in a really good book – the book of MODERN RELICS!