Wire in Design: Modern Wire Art & Mixed Media

Great projects, lots of color photos, and clear directions make this a fine book for beginners and more advanced wire working.

This was one of the first books I bought when I started making jewelry and is still by far, the most inspirational. The variety of the artists covered and their different styles is what I love. The section on Lynne Merchant was truly one of the reasons I started working with wire, and my life has never been the same! The projects offered in this are interesting and offer a nice opportunity for a person to follow the directions, but still end up with something completely unique. [...]

This book has beautiful illustrations, detailed and well chosen content and a nice cross section of the artists' crafts in wire. Best of all, it inspires the creative spark.

Above all, this book shares with us a detailed article (with pictures!) with one of the most influential wire jewelry artisans of the past decade - Lynne Merchant. IMHO, the recently popular thick, oxidized silver, tribal/ethnic, coiled/wrapped style starts with her. It's interesting to see that at least three of the other artists profiled in the book have mentioned taking classes with Lynne. To see their work, and how they have taken the skills that they have learned from Lynne and utilzed them to develop a style of their own, is just fantastic.

Easy to understand, great photography, nice projects and you don't need to be a really talented artist to follow the directions and end up with a piece of art that you'll be proud of.