Jewelry Designer Lisa Eisner Is Bringing Her LA Magic to a Hamptons Residency

Lisa Eisner is moving across the country. Well, let’s just say, the LA jewelry designer who once told Vogue “my pieces are not precious, not little, not costume, but hand done and very California,” has landed in New York with enough jewelry that she may as well be. “I have so much with me I could actually move for three years!” says Eisner over the phone ahead of her month-long residency at Onna House in East Hampton.

Onna House is Lisa Perry’s modernist exhibition space for female artists and designers, and Eisner is the only jeweler in this year’s show. She was introduced to the space and its mission by her friend, the ceramicist and former model and actress Carey Lowell, last summer. “I was blown away,” says Eisner. “I loved the incredible serenity of it… I really wanted to show there.” All six artists and designers in this summer’s exhibition will gather for two days at the start of the show and Eisner plans to dip in and out throughout the month.

The two Lisas crossed paths years ago, introduced through mutual friends. Eisner helped Perry with some vintage shopping tips on the west coast, but they hadn’t connected in a long time. Cut to the Onna House residency: It’s the jeweler’s first in the Hamptons and her biggest on the East Coast in many years (she most recently showed a small capsule of gold nugget pieces at The Row, her son Louis is married to Ashley Olsen).

At Onna House there will be a selection of feather pieces using plumes from a former costume designer of Prince; more nuggets of turquoise, lapis, and opal; extensions of her western-inspired pieces; a selection of her best selling St. Christopher medals; and more gold nuggets, which are inspired by her grandfather, who wore nugget jewelry himself. “They’re like Duchamp readymades,” Eisner says. “I could never do anything better than them… it’s about how you take that raw sculpture and make it your own without changing too much.” All of this she’s planning on showcasing in a way that feels true to her aesthetic.

At home in Los Angeles, Eisner photographs her pieces on a shearling covered pool table (“reminds me of The Beverly Hillbillies,” she says) or in her lush garden. “The Onna House space is almost like the opposite of those museums where they say please don’t touch,” she says. “You need to make it easy for people to try on and put back.” Yes, she’s brought her shearling, but in the Onna House, where she’s setting up between a meditation garden and a moss garden, it’ll cover sculptures, and her pieces will hang from beams. “It’s an installation where you have to touch it,” she says.

Supernatural Beauty will run from August 7 to September 5, 2023, and showcase Lisa Eisner as well as the following artists and designers: Adriana Meunié, Lisbeth McCoy, Setsuko Morita, Tamiko Kawata, and Saskia Freidrich.