Victorian Hairwork Workshop
The 19th century of the Victorian Era was a time rife with sentimental culture. Death rates were high due to numerous factors including disease, war, and high childhood mortality. Queen Victoria was an unlikely fashion icon and submerged herself in mourning after the deaths of both her husband, Prince Albert, and her mother in 1861. Aside from her mostly black wardrobe, she was widely known for her love of mourning jewelry, which very contained hair of a loved one inside.
Victorian hairwork became very popular in both jewelry and shadowbox form during the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century. It transcended the concept of a wearable human relic into a fashion statement during this time period.
In today’s workshop, participants will learn to create wire-work items that would be used in shadowbox creation. We will be working with copper wire and horsehair to form intricate twists and braiding that can be manipulated in various ways to form flowers, leaves, berries, and other shapes. Participants will be able to make an item suitable for mounting in a frame, or wearing as a brooch or hairclip.
Additional Fee Required
Combination Ticket: $180 Symposium Admission with 3 Hour Victorian Hairwork Workshop
Get Tickets
Karen Bachmann
M.A., History of Art, Purchase College, State University of NY
B.F.A., Sculpture/Jewelry, Pratt Institute
Karen Bachmann specializes in jewelry, hollowware, and decorative art. She has special interests in medieval, memento mori , Renaissance,Baroque, and 19th century hairwork. She has been collecting Victorian hairwork jewelry and wall pieces for many years and is often called upon to loan her pieces to museums and lecture on the subject. Her studio work revolves around modern iterations of the genre of hairwork, incorporated into jewelry, wearable art, and decorative objects. She is a practicing studio jeweler with over 25 years of experience creating fine jewelry and is a former master jeweler at Tiffany & Co. She has exhibited her work extensively which can be found in international private and public collections. At Pratt, she teaches in both the Art History and Fine Art departments. She is also an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Karen is a former artist and scholar in residence at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn. Her work has been published in Art Jewelry today and the Lark 500 series of books. Published works include “Hairy Secrets: Human Relic as Memory Object in Victorian Hairwork Jewelry” and “Queen of the Stone Age: the Venus of Willendorf”. Her most recent publication is an essay on hairwork in Death: A Graveside Companion, by Thames& Hudson.
Mattatuck Museum
144 West Main Street
Waterbury, CT
Free parking behind the museum in lots on Park Place
2026-04-25
CT Death and Dying Symposium
