Washington jewelry designer Michelle Sabol estimates she's created thousands of pieces of wearable art since she started her jewelry design enterprise in 1999.

While her work, marketed under the Memphis George label, is included in the collections of celebrities such as Raquel Welch and Kim Hunter, her jewelry showed up last Sunday at the Academy Awards when nominee for Best Feature Documentary, Laura Poitras, wore several of Ms. Sabol's latest creations during the televised ceremonies in Hollywood.

	Rebecca Droke, Post-Gazette Michelle Sabol designed pieces for filmmaker Laura Poitras to wear to the Academy Awards after she was nominated for an Oscar for her feature documentary "My Country, My Country." Click photo for larger image.

"Laura's film, 'My Country, My Country,' was in a very visible category, going up against nominees like Al Gore and his documentary on global warming, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' " Ms. Sabol said.

She met the Oscar nominee while both were working at the San Francisco Cinematique, an organization that screens and supports avant-garde film. Nineteen years old at the time, Ms. Sabol started as a volunteer but worked her way up to technical director by 1989 after Ms. Poitras trained her for tech jobs such as setup and outdoor projection techniques.

Ms. Sabol left the film industry in 1999 to launch her jewelry enterprise in Los Angeles, and the women remained good friends, even after Ms. Sabol moved back to her hometown of Washington in 2002, where she continues to design her jewelry in a studio next to her mother's home.

"Last November, when Laura visited Carnegie Mellon University to lecture as part of a film festival, I attended a screening of her documentary on opening night and was convinced that she'd be nominated for an Academy Award," Ms. Sabol said. "When I met up with her, I told her about my expectations and asked if she might like to wear some of my jewelry to the Oscars."

When Ms. Poitras' film was nominated, the jeweler sent her some initial design concepts based on what she thought would look good on her. At the beginning of February, Ms. Poitras shared the designs with her New York-based dressmaker, Morgane Le Fay, who, according to the filmmaker, was "very impressed by their uniqueness and creativity."

With her proposed design work accepted, Ms. Sabol pushed hard to get the pieces done in time for the award ceremony.

The Tuesday before the Academy Awards presentation, Ms. Poitras received by express mail five Memphis George-designed pieces: three necklaces and two pairs of earrings.

"When Laura tried on her dress for the Academy Awards, she decided she would like to incorporate a bracelet into her ensemble as well, so I overnighted one to her," Ms. Sabol said.

On Oscar night, Ms. Poitras was adorned with the bracelet, a bronze and amethyst necklace with an abstract design, and a pair of pounded gold earrings that were created in the Memphis George studio in Washington.

"Michelle is a very talented, creative person who's always looking for new ways to express herself," Ms. Poitras said. "Her pieces are like sacred objects. Wearing them is like wearing a work of art."

With the Oscar project now behind her, the Washington jewelry artist is busy getting ready for her seventh year in the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

Many of her pieces, are for sale at Gallery Chiz in Pittsburgh; at the Gallery of Functional Art at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, Calif.; and at Zipper Art Forms and Function in Los Angeles. Examples of her work are posted on her Web site, www.memphisgeorge.com.

Ms. Sabol said she was honored to have the filmmaker wear her jewelry at the Academy Awards.

"She's a wonderful woman of substance who went all over Iraq by herself without protection to make her film and ended up with a documentary that's truly unique."

"An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's highly publicized documentary on global warming, came away with the Oscar.