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Art of Adornment is an online-only store and is 100% Canadian
owned and operated. We are not a big nameless/faceless organization: we are a very small company (run by one very hard working person!) based in Vancouver
BC Canada. We have been in business as a verified PayPal member since February 2004. We began officially using the name "Art of Adornment" 1n March 2005,
changing our pre-existing Ebay store name shortly afterward to match. Our web store has existed at this URL since November 2005 (previously at adornment.araneum.ca).
Find us also at:
Click to jump to:
Contact Us (mailing address, phone)
Contributors (who's-who, designers)
Retail Stores (other stores that carry our products)
Message From The Owner (store philosophy/mission)
About The Owner (Elaine Barrick's bio)
Contact Us
Product inquiries, policy concerns, or technical
problems see Help/FAQ first. Order inquirires use our
contact form or call us (have your order # ready).
Mailing Address:
Elaine Barrick/Art of Adornment
#11 - 1201 West Georgia St., Vancouver BC Canada V6E3J5
Home studio, not open to the public.
Phone: (1) 604-351-3952 [Mon-Fri 10am-5pm Pacific Time]
Please note we cannot accept credit card phone orders at this time.
Create a customer account and subscribe
to our free email Newsletter for new items, announcements & special offers! You may unsubscribe at any time.
Newletters are sent 4-6 times a year.
Store
Blog: care of LiveJournal.com
(updated weekly)
Visit us also at: Model Mayhem,
Friendster
Listen while you shop: our music library on
Last.fm
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Contributors
Elaine
Barrick (owner/designer "Valerian")
- jewelry and hat design, web layout and graphic design, product photography,
marketing, customer service, inventory, accounting, shipping/receiving
Michael
Barrick ("Atratus") - web development, fashion photography, hat design
Bart Adrian ("Disdain") - web development
Tanya McDonald (designer "Lady V") - jewelry, decor
Sandi Thomas (designer "Kitsune") - wood hair accessories
Tania McIntyre (designer "BinarySoul") - chainmail accessories
Wynne Palmer (designer "10andSix") - hats, jewelry, decor
Vie Anastassiou (designer "Noctilucence") - masks
Anne-Nicole Meeson (designer "Seductive Perils") - burlesque pasties
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Retail Stores
Sometimes other merchants sell our handmade products in their shops.
See list below and contact them to find out if they still have any stock. If you own a shop and would like to sell our products, let us know! We will list you here as well so customers can find you.
Lace Embrace Atelier
219 East 16th Avenue, Vancouver BC (Canada)
* Sells select products made specially for Lace Embrace - no items from our online catalogue
L'Antre d'Alice
10 Rue Guy Baudoin, Paris (France)
* Sells select items from our online catalogue
RockGothic Ltd.
Kauppiaskatu 3, Turku (Finland)
* Sells select items from our online catalogue
Online-Only Retailers:
The Elegant Aristocrat ~ Norway
* Sells select items from our online catalogue
Are you a retailer? Find out about our reseller discount here.
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Message From The Owner
75%
of the products in this store are HAND MADE in Canada by
one designer (me)! They are not mass-produced in factories
or "sweat shops", nor are they merely the product
of a casual hobby. Creating art is my full-time legitimate
business. I take my work very seriously; I regularly test
and wear my own products, and I have experience in making
and selling fine art and crafts for over 20 years. My
company Art of Adornment has been in business online
since 2004, and there are no plans to stop anytime soon.
So rest assured that we are not going to disappear overnight!
I hold very high standards both for materials and craftsmanship
and stand behind my work 100% - I would not make or sell
anything I would be ashamed to give to a good friend. Even
the work of other designers for sale in the store has been
carefully hand-selected according to my requirements for
solid construction and clean finishing.
I
value my time, experience, and commitment to quality and
choose not to "cut corners" to ensure you get
an attractive durable product and reliable time-tested professional
service. On the other hand, I respect your hard-earned income
and do not inflate our prices just to be pretentious. Our pricing
reflects the materials, skill and passion put into
them, not enormous markups. I
believe fashion design AND customer service is an art -
and art should be available to everyone!
~
Elaine Barrick ("Valerian")
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About The Owner
Elaine
Barrick (better known online by her nickname "Valerian")
was born in 1969 in Vancouver BC and has been an active part of the punk/Goth
subculture since 1983. She graduated from the
4-year fine arts program at the Emily Carr College of Art
& Design in 1991 where she focussed on Painting and 3D/Sculpture. Her creativity
and passion for making art has been a large part of her life
since (in her own words) she was "old enough to hold
a solid object". Elaine is the sole driving force behind Art of Adornment. She not only creates most of the products,
she designed the website layout and graphics, processes and ships all the orders, does all the marketing and promotion, photographs the products,
and handles all customer service inquiries. To say that her store is a labour of love is an understatement!

Elaine Barrick ("Valerian")
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Elaine began exhibiting
her paintings and prints in local galleries and cafés while still a student in 1989, and occasionally participates in group shows to this day.
After finishing art school she worked as a picture framer for 12 years, most of that time being custom department
manager in a wholesale company. Elaine's paintings have been published in New York's Art Business
News magazine and the Vancouver Sun newspaper, as well as featured in the upcoming documentary film Dark Canada.
In 2001 she began selling her artwork on Ebay.com, her first taste of online exposure.
It was not
until 2004 that she began to shift her focus to fashion. After so many years at a
physically demanding job, she was eventually forced to quit due to having developed
chronic tendonitis in both shoulders. It was this injury that was the sole inspiration for her to find a new career. During the 1980's Elaine made her own costume jewelry as a hobby,
deconstructing her grandmother's antique pieces as well as vintage
finds from thrift stores, and re-assembled them to create
new designs. Elaine decided to re-awaken this talent in 2004 and has since offered her work for sale online. But the
"experimental" jewelry of her teen days is long gone - now she collects only
very select skillfully crafted components, many of which she faux-finishes
and alters herself. Some of the metal components are created
with antique tools brought over from Europe to North America more
than two hundred years ago, and are the heart behind her decadent
style. Elaine uses only the highest quality Swiss velvet, glass
beads made in the Czech Republic, Swarovski crystal rhinestones,
and vintage cameos imported from Germany among many other beautiful
and unusual things. To her, making jewelry and accessories is
not just an occupation, it is an art.
Many of Elaine's designs are one-of-a-kind, or "limited edition",
which means a limited number of pieces are made, and no pieces identical
to them will ever be made afterward. These editions are very small, usually
5 or less pieces. Often she will attach a metal tag, hand-engraved
with her signature. Not all pieces are signed however; only an
exclusive selection of pieces which she is especially proud of
will carry her mark (these pieces are likely to be collectable,
since she is extremely critical of her own work and signs very
few). Since 2008 she has also offered the work of some of her friends;
fellow Canadian designers with a taste for both the decadent and the refined. Many
of these pieces are also limited edition or one-of-a-kind.
Although Elaine had been selling her paintings and prints on Ebay since 2001,
the Art of Adornment Ebay Store did not open until 2004, when Elaine switched to selling handmade fashion accessories instead. With the support and guidance of her husband
(photographer, painter, graphic designer and web developer Michael R. Barrick), Elaine was able to open her
own custom-designed online store as well in 2005. Since then, this multi-talented duo has worked together to mold Art of Adornment into what you see today.
Elaine
claims to have always been a "crafty" person, and has
never been able to settle on only one path. In addition to making art and fashion accessories, she designs her own clothing, dabbles
in web design, performs part-time webmisstress duties at Gothic BC, and participates in several other online communities and forums.
Elaine's
Fine Art Portfolio: Personal Website
Elaine on FaceBook:
FaceBook Fan Page
Elaine on DeviantArt:
Valerian's Gallery
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