Soft and Sticky is a creation of jewelry and objects made from elements of play.
Our approach to making is influenced by our childhood – making and breaking things; chasing a sense of inherent carefreeness. Paper mache. Finger painting. Digging for earthworms in the backyard. Tossing slime onto the ceiling to witness its eventual fall onto a dusty bedroom floor.
Soft and Sticky is an exploration – to take in ordinary things and mundane moments and see them with wonder; as if it's the first time. To make and do things with tenderness, imperfection, and the messy in-between.
Our design philosophy embraces our continuous state of evolving; rooted in meaning and deliberate unevenness, asymmetry, and imbalance. We observe the beautiful in-between; when something is breaking down, worn, patina, wrinkled, aged and imperfect and extend that into our designs.
An Interview with Angie Chan, founder of Soft & Sticky
““I think it can be summed up that soft and sticky is my exploration of art and making things. I don’t come from a jewellers background and I’m mostly self taught. I used to work in graphic design / art direction / and digital marketing. I still have a huge love for that kind of work, but I think that kind of work is usually done for other people.
And I always felt like something was missing - I just wanted to focus on myself and what *I* wanted to make, more art over design and strategy.
So it’s why I started soft and sticky, It’s kind of like my journey of learning something new, making mistakes - sharing that process and hoping to inspire people too. Too many creatives get jaded and bored doing work for other people!”
—Angie Chan”
Ciara: I love that childhood, play, and being hands on is a big inspiration for your work. Without a background in it, why did you choose jewelry as your medium instead of something like pottery?
Angie: That’s a good question, because seemingly even when I look back to when I first decided to start Soft and Sticky, it felt like a sudden abrupt decision. I usually take my time making thoughtful decisions - I’m overthinking, over-planning, “over” doing things.
I think it was part naivety and part feeling so jaded in my career for so long that I would rather do anything than to continue. It didn't matter what I did, or what medium I worked with because I just wanted something different.
When I started exploring things that I remembered from my childhood, it just naturally led me to be more curious about other mediums.
I ended up taking a night class in jewelry that I went to after my 9-5 day job; and it ran until I think around 10pm. I remember how tired yet freeing it was to work with something new. Something tangible like wax and precious metals was unlike any of the primarily digital work that I did at the time.
I paid little attention to the result of the work that I made and I liked that feeling of not knowing everything, and being able to explore something new.
Ciara: What is your biggest dream for Soft & Sticky?
Angie: To work with artists that I admire who just "get the vision". To encourage nurturing that creative part of yourself. To make more and to break the rules while doing it.
And I *pinky* promise that Soft and Sticky will champion artists to keep making art because I know how difficult and rare it is to have real, supportive people who believe in you. And to just find people who will give you a chance (especially when you are new to what you do).
Ciara: Who are your biggest influences? (Doesn’t have to be jewelry specific)
Angie: I'm most interested in the philosophy of things and to find the underlying meaning of the world, society, and ideas.
The reaction of Dadaism speaks to me and is one of my biggest influence on my world view. It kind of goes against and challenges what art should be, and what it should look like. It doesn't have a distinctive unifying style. It's experimental and satirical and embraces chance and what appears on the surface to be illogical and irrational as an element in art.
Ciara: If you had one piece of advice to give people starting their own artistic journey what would it be?
Angie: Work on your mental health. When you have a lack of interest in starting or doing anything, it's a sign. I used to be (and I still am) very critical of myself when I do something and I'll tell myself that I'm not good enough - I'm still working on it and it's an ongoing thing for me.
When you're in this kind of mindset it's hard to nurture your artistic journey because the idea of a 'journey' is to learn. You'll fail and you'll have times when you think you are not good enough and think that you should quit. That's normal because I think everyone experiences this. I truly believe that we're all struggling and we're all trying to do our best. I have a lot of respect for anyone doing their own thing and whatever it is they want; irregardless of style and aesthetic because it's all so subjective.
What I mean to say is that if you work on your mental health to have a healthy balance of learning to love yourself and finding compassion even in times when you are critical of yourself, it's easier to cultivate your interests and passions and to enjoy that process.
Ciara: Your pieces have such fun names and meanings behind them. What is your process of creating?
Angie: Thank you, I appreciate that a lot - naming is one of the most difficult things that I have trouble with. I have many archived and pretty much forgotten pieces that I've held onto that nobody has seen because I can't decide and commit to a name. Maybe I'll have to name these pieces untitled1, untitled2, untitled 3, ring1, ring2, idontknowwhatthisis, orwhereitcamefrom etc.
I have a notebook of ideas and concepts that I keep record of when I come across something that resonates with me. I look through it when a project comes up. It's kind of like going through the process of a thesis. I do a lot of research to get an understanding and history behind certain concepts and put my own interpretation to it and then incorporate that into my work where I see fit.
Ciara: Do you have a favourite piece you have ever made?
Angie: Sentimentally, my favourite piece is the Half Domed Ring because it's the ring that started it all. I carved this ring in wax and casted it in solid sterling silver in my first jewelry class. It's a minimalistic design that you can find anywhere across many jewelry brands; but it holds significance to me because one of the things that held me back from trying something new was this idea that if I can't make something new or innovative, what's the point? The Half Dome Ring holds to me the meaning that it's worth doing if you can just start - even if it has been done before.
Ciara: What is your strongest memory from childhood?
Angie: In the beginning when I tried to get back into doing more creative work I got into painting and drawing and even paper mache because I remembered this really specific memory from my childhood:
It's summer break – being home alone most of the time. Being so bored watching reruns of a show from the 90s called "Art Attack" on the TVO channel. I didn't have the materials to follow along, so I would find whatever random materials that I had in my home to make an improvised Frankensteined version of paper mache.
I also remember throwing slime onto my ceiling to watch it get stuck and then slowly fall, and it getting dirtier and dustier the more that I did it.
And getting into my mom's jewelry box that she hid on the top shelf in the closet (many pieces were made from 24k pure gold). I got into a lot of trouble because I hid her jewelry around the house and tossed them into vents and lost several pieces.
My strongest memory is just being really resourceful and frankly, being really "bad" and mischievous with the things that I did to keep myself busy, having fun, and entertained in a time of boredom.