The Chandelier of Lost Earrings

59 Comments
Installing the chandelier
Installing the chandelier

This striking sculpture by Lauren Sagar and Sharon Campbell is made from over 3,000 single earrings donated by owners who have lost the other half of the pair. The women who contributed items to the project also shared, via letters, the stories attached to them and these have become part of the artwork’s legacy. It’s on display at Glasgow Women’s Library until the end of the year. I love it!

Chandelier of Lost Earrings
Chandelier of Lost Earrings – detail
Chandelier of Lost Earrings – detail

Do you end up with a collection of lost earrings, and what do you do with them if so? I know I do – but never enough to create my own sculpture. I have discovered, however, that some charities collect odd earrings and pieces of broken jewellery and can make money recycling them. If you’re in the UK, here are two:

Alzheimer’s Society

Friends of the Earth

Right – I’m off to have a rummage in my jewellery box!

Books and Libraries, Scotland, UK , ,

59 Comments »

  5. That’s really pretty.

    As for odd earrings, I wear odd socks so I don’t see why you can’t wear mismatched earrings. You’d have to make sure they were about the same weight so you didn’t end up feeling lopsided though. 😉

    Like

  6. Love the chandelier, it looks beautiful, and what a brilliant way to use unwanted single earrings. I’ve never had my ears pierced and never want to, so I don’t wear earrings, although back in the 70s I used to wear big dangly clip-on ones.

    My washing machine eats socks but as all the ones I have are black it doesn’t really matter, I can pair up the odd one with another the same

    Like

  9. That is one cool chandelier! I don’t really have any missing earrings because I am gross and never change my earrings, even though I have three piercings per lobe, because my grandma bought me the sets of hoops I wear in my top two holes, and I’d be heartbroken if I ever lost one. But it’s nice to know that there’s a good use for all the oddments of jewellery out there!

    Like

  11. I LOVE this sculpture! I don’t wear earrings so I don’t have many opportunities to lose any, but socks on the other hand…although a sock chandelier would be much less beautiful.

    Like

  14. That’s great. When I think of all the odd earrings I’ve thrown away … Today, though, I dug out my last 5 pairs to put on my “Everything $1” table at a garage sale. I don’t wear them anymore so someone might as well enjoy them.

    Like

  15. How brilliant . . . . I think there must be a earring monster rather like the sock monster, don’t think a sock chandelier would look as stunning though!

    Like

  16. this is wonderful art! wow – such a great idea and I like the different views. And like you – I do not think I would have enough of the earrings to make anything really… and I usually lose them together – not one – (but with socks I lose one…)

    anyhow, I recently made a mixed media art piece and added a single earring that I lost the other one to – it was a pure gold triple loop hanging earring – just little – and I added it to a yoga teacher’s piece I made to represent the “body mind and spirit”
    🙂

    Like

  24. This is inventive! I love the chandelier and have lost earrings. I know my mom often would use parts of the earrings to create her Faberge style eggs. I have even used some as charms on my cards.

    Liked by 2 people

    • That’s a good idea – I think mine would lend themselves more to cards than chandeliers. Some of these look very large and flamboyant, mine are a lot smaller (and my ear lobes are consequently intact!)

      Like

  28. What a great idea and a splendid result. I love artwork made from otherwise “useless” stuff or from recycled material. My ears aren’t pierced, so I never owned, wore, or lost earrings! 🙂

    Like