We HS6’ers gathered in one place for our masterclass with Iris Eichenberg on 25 January 2020. The day before, we had met each other for the first time at Jewel Camp and shown our presentations to the room. Renee Bevan did her Push/Pull supercharged workshop with us and that was pleasantly interactive and thought-provoking although I find it a challenge to comment on work when I don’t know what’s gone on before.
Iris was immediately accessible and warm, and we began. It was intense from the very beginning. Simple questions were asked and we were revealed/exposed as makers and thinkers. To my delight we were able to play.
We laid out a small amount of finished work on the table and with a box of gatherings from our studio were asked to interfere with works. Much easier to interfere with other’s work than my own…and we had to keep quiet. The next day was a day of crits and patience. At the end of the day we were full to the brim with festerings of wisdom.
Iris’ observations that I managed to write down…I like gateways, circles that are activated. Have I calmed down the absurdity? Look at the power of the object…stay in the more feral moment. Care/craft – act of making, handle them like raw eggs. I’m not quite sure what this last part meant, but I definitely got the feral part! Permission to be feral. I really like that.
Attai Chen #1
We had our first session Friday 21 Feb 2020…Munich time 9am, NZ time 9pm. It was lovely to meet Attai, via facetime. I uploaded some pdfs a few days earlier for him to look at.
I spoke about my fears of academia and writing about my work. I spoke about feeling stuck and not sure about where to go next.
I wanted to show him EVERYTHING I had ever made, and EVERYTHING I had ever experimented with, but focussed on a few more recent pieces and an old idea that I never really explored deeply.
I’ve written down a few notes, but found it hard to be present to the process, hold the phone and write brilliant things down…hopefully I’ll work out a system for that moving forward.
He observed humour and sadness in my work and talked about the subconscious/control and release/discipline. He asked about my rivets…(I’ve been asked about these before)…are they decorative? Why do I have so many on some pieces? I immediately remember Shane asking about me the same question when I was studying. My answer was always…well, the plastic needs a plinth and the rivets are a good way to hold the plastic on the plinth. However…am I stuck in the past or just lazy? I loved rivetting when I first started making jewellery when I was 20. It was one of the first things I ever did, and it seemed so PRACTICAL. So am I apologising for the plastic by making it pretty? Hmmm… The work that I’ve done thus far is very brittle and needs to be supported by a plinth so it doesn’t peel or catch – my current justification for too many rivets. Glue perhaps? Try folding?
Attai suggested I try to free myself first by…
Pushing restart with the Plastic
Pushing restart with the Silver
ie, Trick myself into starting again.
And…do a series of experiments – 20 experiments not more than 7 mins each with each material individually, then look at them together and do another session of experiments – say 15 pieces.
Bringing to mind Richard Serra’s list of actions.
I’ve currently managed about four experiments, spontaneously, still using heat….there’s definitely a few other actions I could use for the below…disarrange, droop, flow, spill, hang, arrange, collect, suspend.
And now I need to get on with it so I can show my mentor some more experiments. Life continues to get in the way. Here’s a little Cornelia Parker quote to remind me that what I’m doing.
