Many hands make light work | Know like the back of your hand | Put your hands together ?Cold hands warm heart | Show of hands | Dab hand | First Hand | Hand in hand | Hands on | Heavy handed | Old hand | Out of hand | Under hand | Change hands | Hand over | Hands full | Hands tied | In safe hands | Try your hand | Hands down | Second hand | In good hands | Helping hand | On hand | Get your hands dirty | Hand over fist | On the other hand | In your hands
The brief for CHAINreaction was to make a chain which would connect into a series of 49 chains, celebrating 10 years of the Handshake project and artists involved, each of us was responsible for the linking connection to our righthand neighbouring chain. This was a timely invitation to step back into making work that could function both as adornment or object.
Key concepts I wanted to express included interconnectivity, collectivity and a desire to celebrate the precious impermanence of life in these weird times. In response to being part of the HandShake6 team I was drawn to exploring the form of the hand as our tools for making, medium for touch, sign and gesture.
I made two of these bamboo ‘hands’ which connect together as a chain, with a hand at each end and can be worn or configured in multiple ways. Bamboo attracted me for it’s plentiful weedy growth, bony form and tubular structure. The movement of the joints was an important element to me. To invoke a sense of jointed fingers rather than being too floppy I burred out concave curves in the bamboo ends to accommodate the round beads and strung the work on braided steel wire rather for some additional flex.
 |
 |
 |
 |
After making the first two hand necklaces, Manon questioned my initial use of resin beads, alongside some other extraneous details and challenged me to find a material with more integrity. I had been attracted to the resin beads for their colourful celebratory vibes and history as Mardi Gras beads from New Orleans, but I could see Manon’s point and they were horrible to work with. Another lockdown presented me with the time to find some dyed wooden beads, retaining the colour infusion but more in keeping with the bamboo and I made two new ‘Manos’. I generally don’t make multiples of an exhibition piece to begin with, but being challenged to do so resulted in more resolved, better-made works. Thank you Manon.
I wasn’t sure how or if this piece would connect into my data visualisation work for the HandShake project. I’m finding the segway into using bamboo and coloured wooden beads after wrapping/painting tree branches data representations has exciting potential which I’m beginning to explore further. Having collected all the excess parts of the bamboo, offshoots and stalks, I’m starting on some more weaving samples and intend to incorporate some aspect of my personal data collection within these experimental structures.
The CHAINreaction project linked me to Nik Hanton on my left, Kim Whalen on my right. This instigated conversations for the first time with these two past HandShake artists. Kim is also an Auckland based artist so we were able to have an ACTUAL visit to show our necklaces and discuss the clasping mechanism…ending up sharing experiences and offering support.
 |
 |
 |
The exhibition brought so many of us together, Handshake artists and the wider community, for the inaugural Nelson Jewellery week which was the perfect foil to Covid isolation and a chance to catch up with so many old and new jewellery related mates.
Thanks to Peter and Hilda Deckers for organising, Vernon Brown for excellent handling of the challenging install, Kay Van Dyk for being head instigator on Nelson Jewellery Week 2021, Creative NZ for some funding and all the superb and lovely artists, curators, writers and gallerists involved in the exciting programme. It was a welcome blast of interaction, inspiration and education we look forward to repeating.