Jewelry as Advocacy - Youth Art Month

Back in the early 90's, a big trend for my art teacher friends was to create laminated art pins.  We used these as a vehicle for advocacy.  During Youth Art Month we would give them out to coworkers, administrators, and folks interested in the arts along with a message about supporting art in education.

To create the pins we used the thumbnail size images of famous art works from the vendor catalogs and mounted them on railroad board or mat board.  We would either run them through the laminating machine or paint modge podge on them.  Lastly, we would glue pin backs on them.

At some point, I saw a jazzed up version of those in an art gallery gift shop, and then I started creating my own that way.  These are too time consuming to make en masse, but I enjoy wearing them from time to time.

Here are some that have been hanging around for years, but that just got the finishing touch.  I've added beads and then coated them with resin.