‘Winter Brooches’ @ Studio 20/17

I’ve written before about the pieces I made for the recent Studio 20/17 group exhibition ‘Winter Brooches‘. Sadly I didn’t get to Sydney to see it myself – bit too exhausted and laid low with crazy long-set jet-lag.

Other artists in the exhibition are below (with links where I could find them), and the images were provided by Studio 20/17 (taken by Michelle Miller; I’ve lightened and cropped them a little for the blog) and are not to be reproduced without permission:

• Vernon Bowden
• Zoe Brand – blog, site
• Anna Davern – blog
• Peter Deckers- kit and caboodle profile
  

  courtesy of Studio 20/17

• Joung-mee Do – studio profile
• Emma Fielden – site
• Karin Findeis – site
• Stephen Gallagher – kit and caboodle profile
• Christian Hall – jam factory story
  

  courtesy of Studio 20/17

• Karin Jacobson – site
• Daehoon Kang – studio profile
• Michelle Miller – studio profile
  

  courtesy of Studio 20/17

• Natalia Milosz-Piekarska- blog
  

  courtesy of Studio 20/17

• Sean O’Connell – site
• Felicity Peters – site
• Lina Peterson – site
• Karen Thompson (me!)
  

  courtesy of Studio 20/17

• Mark Vaarwerk – site
• Zoe Jay Veness – studio profile
• Margaret West – craft australia article
  

  courtesy of Studio 20/17

• Melinda Young – blog, site

There are other photos on Studio 20/17 blog.

Current exhibitions…

Would it be too immodest to be excited about being in two exhibitions in Sydney at the same time? Well, I am new at this, and I am pretty excited!

I’ve written previously about the new work I’ve contributed to Studio 20/17 ‘Winter Brooches‘ exhibition. Sadly my original plan to visit Sydney this weekend won’t eventuate, so I won’t be able to see the six pieces in situ; but this Sunday is the last day for this show.

I’m also part of ‘re:production‘ at Gaffa Keeper Gallery, curated by Zoe Brand. I really liked Zoe’s idea: “Adorning almost every surface of a room, re:production is an exhibition of roughly 500 images that document the practices of a diverse range of contemporary jewellery makers.” It’s an exhibition not of jewellery, but of photographs of jewellery, making, spaces, inspiration, and the like; it runs until 15th June.

If you’ve visited either of these exhibitions, I’d really like to know what you thought – so please do leave a comment.

My work: ‘Quotes’

After what felt like intense making for the ‘Time‘ series, I felt I needed a counter-balance in making as well as it felt like time to make pieces that weren’t so personal and that someone else may be more inclined to wear. Something lighter and smaller was in order.

'Quotes'; amended copyright notice: not to be reproduced without permission

Little pieces to remember favourite phrases, hand-written on the markers; left to right:

• ‘For Keith: let me walk before they make me run‘ – the gorgeous Keith Richards; black and bronze colours because he’s totally rock and roll
• ‘For Milan: optimism is the opium of the people‘ – from Milan Kundera novel ‘The Joke’; this is a favoured quote of a dear friend of mine, and when I asked him what colours he thought of with this phrase he said greys
• ‘For Anais: life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage‘ – one of my favourites from the writings of Anais Nin; the colours are livelier and gorgeous

As I left Australia before the exhibition ‘Winter Brooches’ opened, as I write this I’m not actually sure which pieces will be shown…

My work: ‘Time: Life’

The third in the series ‘Time‘ I recently made is one that explores my own lifeline and milestones so far. The paper I’ve used is a colour copy of a lung/heart x-ray I recently had – the technician said I had a ‘lovely small heart’, which is apparently good news. I loved the blue hue the copier gave it, and there’s not another paper/text/image in my possession that is more uniquely me than this (maybe my birth certificate, but I liked this much better).

x-ray copy cut into strips

While I would have loved to have used the x-ray transparency itself, when I checked with the hospital I found out that no copies of film are kept, so cutting it up would mean I wouldn’t have the record for comparison to future x-rays. What I did find out though, is that the lovely person I was talking to said that many people send back their x-rays (or sometimes never pick them up) and that these are sometimes available (with confidential information removed) to artists – she was not at all surprised that I wanted to make art from mine!

paper woven and testing out shapes

The length of the woven paper represented my age in years, and then along the length of the strip I made ‘markers’ for milestones, which I handwrote on thin fine silver bezel and folded over. The last marker on the strip is ‘NOW’ – I didn’t want to jinx anything nor suggest that the paper represented all that my life will be.

'Time: Life' (fine silver, paper, stainless steel); amended copyright notice: not to be reproduced without permission

I tried many iterations of the final construction, with wire tests and other frames, but decided on the above form as the free-fall of the curls was appealing.

This is an exhibition piece only: it feels too big to wear, at least I think it’s too big for me to wear (especially in its current format); and I cannot see that anyone else would be interested in wearing my life milestones! That said though, I really enjoyed making this one; especially thinking about the various ways a person’s life can be represented in a traditional timeline (like the ones used for history lectures) – one could use addresses, relationships, hairstyles, etc…

Previous post on ‘Winter Brooches’ work here…