Non-Profit Jewelry Company Commissions Philip Crangi to Make Earrings Out of AK-47s
An AK-47, the world's most distributed assault rifle, conjures up a lot of images--and usually pretty jewelry isn't one of them. But thanks to new jewelry company and nonprofit organization Fonderie47 that might soon be changing and for a good cause too, reports the New York Times. Struck by the profusion of AK-47s on a 2008 trip to Kenya, humanitarian leader Peter Thum saw an opportunity to get the guns off the street--and make something beautiful in the process. He, along with John Zapolski, soon founded Fonderie47, a jewelry company that creates original, high-fashion "wearable art" out of recovered AK-47 gun metal. "We saw the AK-47 as an opportunity because it’s such a successful design,” Thum told the New York Times. “It’s something that’s globally recognizable. What better way to turn things around than with this object, which represents so many things ugly, and turn it into something beautiful?”