Handshake offers a tried a true package of exploration, development, feedback and presentation. It’s an opportunity to get new perspectives and to improve, to make good work and to share that good work with others. ….And I really want to make good work.
But what is good work?
In 2020 I took part in a Masterclass with Iris Eichenberg in Auckland. Iris took our group to Fingers gallery and we had the opportunity to play, touch, hold, try on and discuss the diverse collection of jewels held by the gallery. While the work shown in the gallery was as varied as our own aesthetic preferences, there was a clear, collective view on what work stood out as being good. While clever concepts delighted us, it was the craftsmanship, tactile nature and durability of the work that drew us together, almost unanimously, in declaring it, good work.
As I navigate the next two years of handshake, of making, pushing my work out, pulling my work back, making it big, making it small, making it in something else, at the heart of it all, I want to make good work. To make good work and to share that good work with others.