Creativity is a river.
Creativity is a fire.
In the recent PUSH PULL workshop with Renee Bevan I found myself contemplating rivers as jewellery:
I am imagining giant snake-like rivers made of stones, heavy and cold, wrapped around my body head to toe.
This was a strange instinct, and to sit with it over a period of a few days drew me deeper and deeper into the curious pull of the river. Contemplating weight, temperature, flow and exhibition ideas, including interactive works for the viewers.
In the workshop we were asked to bring along previously made jewellery objects, to revise, share, critique and ultimately Push and Pull ideas. Receiving feedback about my work was incredibly valuable, especially when others interacted with pieces, or tried them on, commenting on small surprises such as: I’m surprised by how light this is – when the work itself looks heavy, due to size and colour. That experience of asking others to physically interact with my work opens potential pathways for further experimentation and choices in future exhibitions.
Contemplating the workshop, I found the following comments inspirational:
- “What if I didn’t ground you?” – a mushroom talisman.
- “Made out of something soft” – another mushroom talisman.
- “Is it about the past or the present? Is it living or ancestral?” – the river as snake/ jewellery.
These comments were made by other Handshake8 participants in relation to my work, pushing and pulling at purpose, material and timeline. I asked myself if I could work in new or different ways, or if I simply needed to dive deeper (push) specific aspects of my style/ approach/ ideas/ process.
After the workshop held in Nelson, I drove to a river and spent a night there, making a fire and listening to nature. During the morning I collected simple stones. They spoke to me, asking me to hear their stories, to speak as a river.
I enjoy the process of leaning in close, listening to materials with my eyes closed, my body an open, feeling conduit. I tend to place an object or material within eyesight at all times, or carry it with me if it is small enough to fit inside my pocket. The object communicates its nature to me over a period of time, sinking into my subconscious before I work with it; shapeshifting it into its new form.
Now, I approach my next Masterclass with Estela Saez Vilanova and turn my attention towards creativity as fire. As I settle into the nature of fire, I wonder what that would do to the river which snakes along the ground? What would my fire communicate through the stones, through the land and my making process, seeking to collaborate, co-create and find new life form?
If I turn my attention away momentarily from creativity as water, and contemplate it instead as fire, how does that shift or transform my attention, speed and instinct to create?
In my class with Estela, I am working with the materiality of wood. I hammer, beat, strip and burn each piece of wood. Everything is in pieces. The scent is glorious. I have a sense of where we are being directed, but most of it is secret from us, I have only the wood to explore, investigate, transform, destroy, reshape and build upon.
Eventually, the river and the fire may meet. If I time things just so, with patience, skill, endurance and instinct, I’ll create elemental offerings. Perhaps I’ll combine stone with wood, or, I may move in an entirely new direction. I’m looking forward to this ongoing inquiry, of both materiality and my own expression.