Tuesday, July 19, 2011

images of seeding the cloud on the body


I am working through the design of an instruction booklet in preparation for more extensive public interaction with the project. Recently I was fortunate to have documentation taken of the process in action by the generous and very talented photographer Alison Bennett. She also took some great images of the test piece being worn.
I love the way Alison captured this work on the body. It always feels a bit risky when you hand your work over to a photographer (well to anyone actually) as you can never be sure how they will interpret it. I loved the way Alison worked with this piece, placing it around the body covering the back and front, almost as if the body were a landscape to be chartered in itself, such an intelligent response.
The work is modeled by Alison's daughter Mieke who was totally cool and gorgeous. She didn't seem to blink an eyelid at the proposition of wearing something a bit weird and made from..... well rubbish.
The piece is quite dynamic when worn, it makes a beautiful sound - sorry no sound file!
Have a look at more of Alison's work here http://alisonbennett.net/

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Seeding the Cloud was referred to in a paper presented by Dr Damian Skinner at the recent SNAG conference in America. His paper received some coverage on this blog and i was thrilled to see my work had made an impact!

The Dr. is In – Damian Skinner @ SNAG Seattle

Dr. Damian Skinner (editor Art Jewelry Forum blog, writer, curator) headed off the afternoon of SNAG Seattle Day 2, following the captivating talks by Glenn Adamson and Lola Brooks quite well with his “All the World Over: Ambitions of Contemporary Jewelry“. You may recognize him from The Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelryexhibition and catalog that had it’s US debut in 2010, or his various articles on artjewelryforum.org. In this presentation he quotes largely from Peter Dormer and Ralph Turner (writers of The New Jewelry: Trends and Traditions) on locality vs. universality of contemporary jewelry.
Europe vs USA This image says it all, I love how crude but effective it is. Basically, jewelry from Europe is regarded as the International standard for Contemporary Jewelry, whereas American jewelry is not held in such high esteem and is by the rest of the world only referred to by locality as “American Contemporary Jewelry”. How do we feel about this? “Liberation occurs when you destroy the hierarchy”, Skinner remarks.
The Human NecklaceIn the “New Jewelry Movement” (in which we find ourselves now) there is an ongoing critique of preciousness that allows for a deeper engagement with society. As with Australian jeweler, Roseanne Bartley, her “surface archeology” work repurposing found items, such as in her “Human Necklace” (photo, left), where people became the structure of jewelry shapes in public places. The notion of a jewelry piece solely existing for a small blip of time, only to live on in the photographic form, recurs often over the course of this conference.

Roseanne Bartley Seeding the Cloud
Roseanne Bartley’s Seeding the Cloud

Her “Seeding the Cloud” acts of walking about town, tools in hand, making jewelry from discarded materials she finds along the way, “demonstrates the potential of jewellery to counterbalance the increasing physical isolation of contemporary life in info-hubs” (craftUnbound.net). She is endearingly coined a “neighborly ornament”. This leading into my favorite quote by Damian, one that I truly believe and would like to see more of:

“The Greatest Art is created when there is no boundary between art and community.”