For many of the previous classes with Estela we had been oscillating between creatively exploring within two and three dimensions. In this session we played somewhere in between. We had a creative brief that was inspired by our latest collection of rings. It was a very short brief. It was only one word. We had a very limited time to try and capture that word or theme in a moving image. My brief was ephemeral. To me the word sparked ideas of “a moment it is here, and the next moment it is gone”.
Ephemeral video screen shot
The clip was of a scene from outside my front door on a quiet night. The crickets could be heard chirping, as well as the breeze blowing through the trees. The rustling movement of the leaves concealed and revealed glimmers of street lights that sat behind the bushes and highlighted the leaf edges. My hope was that the clip evoked a sense of a fleeting moment passing.
The short clip was then to be our inspiration for a necklace. We had a week for the exploration and construction time. For necklace investigated the leaves and trees. I investigated how to catch the light, but not necessarily have the full leaf form. By using polished stainless steel the light caught on one particular part of the chain and left the rest on the chain in relative darkness. I imagined the light dancing along the edge of the form with the movement of the necklace being worn. In the construction used thin wire to inspire a feeling of fragility, despite the usual material properties.
The brief was for one necklace. I felt that the word ephemeral had more space for exploration. In the making process of the first necklace lines of new enquiry arose. The next necklace investigated how using natural materials would come across differently than stainless steel. I chose to play with cardboard and black silk. My aim was that the cardboard leaf forms would seemingly float on a black background as they had come across in the film. I also wanted the forms to leave a trace on the wearer, as moments leave their impressions on us.
To highlight the leaf forms I covered the cardboard chalk. The chalk made it so you could not help but leave a trace, either by putting it on or the slight movement of the necklace. When the necklace was removed the evidence would be left. As a result I came out with a necklace, but also separately the marks that were made on the top I wore. The traces from the necklace hold their own apart from the necklace form that created it and were hauntingly beautiful.
In this particular exercise I really enjoyed making an immediate response to a place and moment. Almost like my sketching exercises, the necklaces seem to have a gestural quality. The ideas for the pieces flowed. The conceptual nature of the word ephemeral allowed space for playful investigation. Again through the making of these pieces the questions of “what if…” inspired the next iteration. The investigation of the queries gave me two vastly different objects inspired by the same word. The second of which was quite unexpected.
