David LaPlantz

The satirical and serious, 3-D visual Artist David LaPlantz, a.k.a. David D. Deco, D. David Deco and D.D. Deco creates colorful contemporary art jewelry in the form of brooches and bola ties. When not creating jewelry, he explores social commentary, mixed media and assemblage sculpture in the form of ‘Art Microphones’. 

Artist Statement

 

I make colorful and provocative art jewelry that employs flat stacked, or formed and riveted/cold connected industrially painted aluminum. The lightness and brightness of my dramatic colored materials lends an air of magic and excitement while I work that I sometimes can’t contain. On some pieces, I actually get all tingly and high strung (I am sure my blood pressure goes up) in the final minutes of the jewelry. Frequently, I set an arbitrary 2 hour working window, start to finish, to keep a freshness and high tension energy in the studio air.

Fun, exploration and the newness in each new piece is what keeps me excited and working every day. However, when the jewelry gets bogged down, I will shift to another piece. Generally, I will have as many as half a dozen pieces going at one time. If one piece hits the wall of "no decision/solution," I quickly shift to another. This cuts down on my disappointment and keeps the studio air crackling!   

There is a lightness, brightness and magic that seems ready to be explode out of the industrially painted sheet aluminum I employ in my art jewelry. I have to be ever ready, to deviate from my sketch or intended direction, that is (was) my original idea. Often, the deviation is so much stronger, better, funnier or more meaningful that my original brain chosen conclusion/direction. That does not mean, I am forever a deviant (well I might be), but I always want to be ready to see another more exciting pathway to travel. Staying loose, free and open to new and better possibilities the only pathway to travel.

I am influenced by such visual artists as Alexander Calder, Miro, Magritte, David Smith, Dali, the architects Antoni Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright along with musicians Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Steely Dan, but I not sure you can see any overt references to these influential artists, architects or musicians in any my art jewelry! But, each in their own way influence and guide the imagery in my work.

 

 

In 1969, LaPlantz received his metalsmithing MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Since that time he has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work is represented in the following (short list) permanent collections: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Art and Design, New York, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, Cranbrook Academy of Art, St. Paul Art Center, Ontario Crafts Council, Toronto, Canada, Oakland Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum and California Crafts Museum among others. 

David’s jewelry has been included in 500 Brooches and 1000 Rings by Lark Books. He has been featured in three Ornament Magazine feature articles and in Jewelry Concept and Technology by Oppi Untracht. His work is also included in the 2021, new book entitled In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture by Susan Cummins, Damian Skinner and Cindi Strauss.