Over the past couple of years I have been making a lot of objects with a plan that they will become jewellery. Whether I add a necklace cord or brooch fitting, or perhaps they trigger an idea for a future jewellery piece. But, a year later I looked back and these objects had stayed just that – objects with no attachment to or relationship with the body.
Earlier in the year, my mentor Lisa asked me: what is holding me back from these things becoming jewellery? Do I want them to be jewellery? And if not, where do I situate my art practice?
I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting on these questions.
Perhaps it is due to numerous lockdowns and the fact that I haven’t exhibited much work in the past two years. Perhaps this is why I haven’t quite gotten around to actually finishing them. Perhaps it is laziness then? I certainly find the process of exploring materials and forms and the more experimental and playful side of making the most interesting. Sometimes it is hard to find the motivation to add a brooch fitting – especially when I don’t know when someone else might actually get to see or wear it. And then this raises the question: what drives my making? Is it other people seeing my work? I think it is to a certain extent, but I’m still figuring out exactly where I sit with this.
But, maybe it is not laziness at all. Perhaps my work is moving away from jewellery. I look to artists such as Kate Newby (recommended to me by Lisa Walker) and think, ‘well maybe this work and practice does resonate’. Newby’s work often includes small handmade objects but it is not jewellery. Perhaps this is something I will swing in and out of as my practice evolves. For periods of time I might feel more like what I’m making is sculpture, sometimes it might be installation art, sometimes it might be jewellery.
But… there is something about jewellery.
Something about an object that is worn and goes out in the world. An art object that goes to the supermarket, that accompanies you to work and that witnesses the ups and downs of daily life. Something about an object made with the body in mind. About an object that is completed by the body. And then of course, jewellery has held a huge significance though out human history. The information and meaning it often contains makes jewellery one of our most cherished objects.
Over the past 6 months or so, I have started thinking more about the wearability and the relationship to the body from the outset – when the work is just an idea, a sketch and a maybe couple of samples. I have also started photographing work on the body again. I have even started to go back and add brooch fittings and cords to old work, finally wearable after a year and a half of sitting in my workshop.
So yes, I am a jeweller. Sometimes I might spend some time branching off into other areas but I have a pretty strong feeling that I will always come back to jewellery.
