Calendar: September 2013

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Jewellery on the morning news

The news. Important stuff.

And this morning ABC news reader Virginia Trioli was wearing a contemporary jewellery piece that caught my eye.

Virginia is a Melbourne-based jewellery lover – remember she hosted the e.g.etal Giving Beads auction a few years ago.

photograph of television screen; 28th August 2013, approx 0730; ABC24

Do you know who the maker is?
It seems familiar to me, but in my pre-coffee morning fog I can’t quite place it…

ps. I’ll try to get a better image sometime this morning!

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Update [31st August]: solved!! the maker is Janet Watts

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You wear your ring where?

They’re apparently called ‘above the knuckle’ rings … oh right.

Apparently they were big in the 80s and 90s … oh right, that passed me by (but I did live in the country).

An option is clearly to jam them down so far that can’t move… but otherwise, how on earth do they stay on? Does one need to have relatively large interphalangeal joints for them to stay put? Or perhaps only wear them when not doing a whole lot…

Anyways, the ‘trend’ does have substantial historic cred. Portraits from my favourite period, late 15th and early 16th century (Flemish and German), show many wearing rings in this position.

For example, my dearest Giovanna wears one:

detail; click on image for original artwork

And in fact many men of the era seemed to be fans …

detail of Portrait of Levinus Memminger; click on image for original artwork

Though I suspect that may be due to the pieces being inherited and simply being worn wherever they fit, as opposed to a deliberate fashion statement.

Oh wait, I’ve just realised that it’s weird that I love these portraits when I am anti-figurative in so many other ways … strange indeed.

My piece for ‘Art of the Cuff’

As I did last year, I am once again participating in Lord Coconut‘s ‘Art of the Cuff‘ exhibition.

I like the premise and last year some amazing works were created by a diverse range of artists and makers – I can’t wait to see what is submitted this year.

Cuff; image not to be reproduced without permission

My work for the exhibition is titled ‘may the protection of the ancestors be yours‘.

The text is taken from my favourite poem ‘Beannact (for Josie)‘; which was also an inspiration for work in my RMIT years. One of the verses is:
“May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.”

Cuff; image not to be reproduced without permission

The black dots represent the text in braille. And again yes, it is on woven paper and silver, which just makes sense to me to combine with textiles (for that was the original inspiration for the weaving).

The reference to braille was brought about by the proximity of the cuff to the hand … this has been in my ‘ideas archive’ for quite some time, so I am happy it has finally made it to physical form.

I decided to bind the cuff together instead of making a cufflink … by way of binding the protection and making a wrist amulet of sorts.

[After making this I went back through the photographs from last year’s exhibition and saw that another artist also made the connection of cuff to braille; I wasn’t consciously aware of that object when I was making mine, but the convergence of ideas always fascinates me.]

And I love how the silver scatters the morning light…

Cuff; image not to be reproduced without permission

‘Art of the Cuff‘ will be at Lord Coconut from 18th September to 6th October 2013.