Peaceable Kingdom. Claire Kahn’s New Mexico

Artist list

Claire Kahn

Every piece is defined by the wearer, Kahn says, describing the handmade, one-of-a-kind beaded infinity ropes featuring sophisticated color progressions, sensuous textures and precise patterns. It’s not just that you can wear it, but that the wearer completes it. For me, that’s the definition of design.

Long a Santa Fe favorite, Kahn offers her followers a new reason this year to anticipate her new collection. Her pieces will tempt collectors with the influences distinctive to the New Mexico they love. That is because halfway through 2016 Kahn left her Bay Area home of 60 years and moved into her peaceable kingdom, her new home amid the tall grass, edgy wildlife and red cliffs of the Pojoaque Valley.
The fall colors are a special inspiration for the new necklaces. “One includes gold and tourmaline,” Kahn says, “It’s a color palate I plan to use in more pieces, but I am finding the color changes in the valley, as fall gets into full swing, amazing and may evolve the scheme a bit. A piece in deep blue purple with yellow could be part of a new collection.”

With intricate hooks and knots invisible to the eye, Kahn knits tiny glass beads into sought-after necklaces and bracelets. Many of them measure 40 inches or longer. To the touch, the bead ropes are snakeskin. To the eye, they are the complex mosaic one might find in classic architecture. Kahn puts 40 hours and 5,000 beads into a typical necklace. “My feeling about colors depends on the relationship of one to another,” she says. “I love opposites coming together. It’s a big thing with me.”

At Patina Gallery, exclusive representative of Kahn’s work, owners Ivan and Allison Barnett recognize that finest craft is inspired magic. Kahn often finds it in the tranquility of nature and the beauty of architecture. Kahn’s works help make Patina one of the top ten galleries in the world offering handcrafted, contemporary, high-quality pieces by the finest European and American artists.