Brinkerhoff sculptures

Brinkerhoff Sculptures

With a demand spanning the globe, Clarita Brinkerhoff has created nothing short of a phenomenon with her company. Founded in 1999, Clarita Brinkerhoff has  shown her work in fashion capitals such as Paris, London, New Delhi and New York City. Her designs are sold in high-end boutiques, hotels, and galleries worldwide. 

Originally from Medellin Colombia, Clarita and her husband, Jorge Brinkerhoff, followed in family footsteps by becoming art dealers and collectors. With an appreciation for art as a young adult, Clarita studied architecture and design. After a sculpture class, the budding artist was hooked – hooked on beauty, moved by nature and enthralled by jewelry. It was not long before she had an idea that would skyrocket. She took her love of jewelry, in all its glitz, glamour and sentimental value, and made jewelry for the home. 

After several years of trial and error, Clarita perfected her art – nature-inspired masterpieces standing 18 to 48 inches tall, made mostly of metal and crystals, up to 55,000 stones in each sculpture. Going through many of the same creation stages as jewelry, these designs are first sculpted in clay, carved and shaped. Then, a wax model is pulled from the clay forms to be corrected and used as the final mold. From there, holes are drilled into the mold for the stones. The mold is then put on a spinning wheel that through centrifugal force creates a perfect casting without air bubbles. Pewter is then injected into the mold while it is still on the wheel. The separate pieces of the design are then welded together the resulting product then goes through grinding and polishing, as well as copper plating and a final plating to give the object shine and to protect it from tarnishing, then every single crystal is set one by one by hand.

The designs that currently include flowers, birds, marine life and endangered species collection are made by a small group of craftsmen overseen by the Brinkerhoff husband and wife duo. The immense popularity of the pieces, however, is making expansion inevitable. Collectors stretching from Hong Kong, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, New Delhi, Mumbai to Los Angeles to New York, seem to be buying them faster than they can be produced (approximately 20 pieces per month), quite often purchasing two or three designs at one time. 

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