‘Any group, society, institution, or organisation that encourages women to revile the eccentric, to be suspicious of the new and unusual; to avoid the fervent, the vital, the innovative; to impersonalise the personal, is asking for a culture of dead women.’ Clarissa Pinkolas Estés
The work that emerged for the final Handshake Exhibition, Morph, was purely intuitive and a direct result of reading Estés ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’; a book that insists on the rights of women who have lost their way to reclaim their power, their internal wild woman. It is a seminal work.
I began my Handshake 6 journey in 2020 with a Masterclass taken by my chosen mentor Iris Eichenberg. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet her in person at this Masterclass before the world went into a state of lockdown and confusion. Our monthly Zoom meetings took on a different tone as we all tried to come to terms with the new order. My work was, I felt stilted and scattered. Ironically, I had chosen knots as my subject of investigation and there were plenty of tangles around us, and my own hands felt knotted and unable to make with fluidity.
Susan Videler, My Hands 2020
We had a successful exhibition, ‘Signing In’, at Te Auaha at the close of 2020 between lockdowns and my work was an exploration of knots as discussed in previous blogs. Nelson Jewellery Week, 2021 saw the development of my work,’ The preservation of Memory’, using wax as a preservative and medium.
As 2021 dragged on I, like many others it seems, became listless with my making and unsure about where I wanted to put my energy. The ‘Glimmer’ exhibition at Whirinaki Ware Taonga early this year was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the other Handshakers and discuss our work. My contribution,’ Diary; 364 days and a Glimmer of Hope’, was a chain made of links created during 2021. I had made a link for every day of the year, predominantly sterling silver, but also, gold, paper, fabric and wire. It was a personal chronicle of a year of wonderful highs, (the purchase of a new home and the arrival of my first grandchild) odd lethargy and a heart wrenching low (the death of a dear friend and fellow jeweller).
Unsure how to proceed this year I started to re-read Estés book after having been introduced to it while writing the dissertation for my Masters. It unleashed a response that kept me up nights in my kitchen experimenting with wax, papers, bones, dyes, leather, silks and my own hair. The six works tumbled out one after the other each with a distinct energy and each with her own story. Some took weeks to develop fully while others had a life of their own from inception. They all had their genesis in the early experimental work of the previous two years.
There was a relief associated with making from the heart, following instinct as opposed to wracking my brains over a conceptual thought that could be turned into a physical reality. In fact, only one of the six pieces was made this way. Ironically this was to be the work that sold at the opening of our Morph Exhibition.
Iris insisted that the work evoke a reaction, that the viewer was to make the effort responding to the piece. The piece itself did not do the work.
So below are the 6 pieces that made up ’Bone by bone, hair by hair Wild Woman comes back’, from the Morph exhibition at NorthArt in Auckland 2022.
The Golden Thorn, rose wood, gold leaf and elastic, 350 x 90 mm, 2022.
An extension of a previous piece, the darkened rose bush stalks have the odd thorn gilded in gold leaf. The thorns emerge from a knot of rose wood the hangs at heart level, bulky and uncomfortable. Dangerous as they may appear the odd thorn can become a benefactor, a sharpened experience that pierces the unconscious to open and allow space or a fresh skin to bloom.
Singing over the Bones, bone, oxidised sterling silver, 480 x 220mm, 2022.
Estes suggests that we spend our lives gathering up our bones, finding out who we are and fleshing ourselves out. We must sing over the bones as we find them to breathe life and meaning into them, to understand our place.
Revelation, bible pages, wax, silk, oxidised sterling silver jump rings, 400 x 800mm, 2022.
The bible is soaked in blood, there is death and punishment strewn across the pages. I perceive it this way and have since childhood, this neck piece is my perception preserved in blood coloured wax with a knot of 30 pieces of silver at its base.
Collar for Judith or Delilah, hair, wax, silk, 390 x 120mm, 2022.
An ode to the strength and cunning of two notorious women. One who cut off Samson’s hair and the other who with the help of her handmaiden hacked off Holoferne’ s head. Both women brought down powerful men, both women found their inner wolf. The colour, material and positioning on the body make the associations quite clear.
La Loba, kid leather, stag antler, silk, 440 x 110mm, 2022.
Here we have her, skin and bone, the claws unsheathed extending beyond the soft kid leather and silk. The fine wrist delicately buttoned sits above the unexpected, the unconscious exposed. The wolf woman.
Whisperings, wax, handmade flax paper, pearls, silk, silver dollar seeds, 440 x 100mm, 2022.
The gentlest of the 6 works this reflects the quiet inner voice that drops pearls of wisdom along the path. The voice we so often ignore that calls to us from the intuitive recesses.
I wish to thank all eleven of my fellow Handshakers who undertook this extended journey with me, it was a privilege and a comfort to have you all alongside me. It was a supportive group right from the first Masterclass in 2020.
To Iris Eichenberg, inspirational, intuitive and a powerhouse in the jewellery field my thanks also to you for your insightful analysis.
Thank you also to Estela Saez and Renee Bevan for the workshops via Zoom.
Lastly a big thank you to Peter and Hilda without whom Handshake would not exist, you both do a wonderful job cementing everything and everyone together, on time and well presented!