Photo: Jean Ange In the Objectspace work I was looking at the evolution of a body of work following a make-remake process, including what happens to the direction of the work when external forces (in this case Ruudt!) come into play. For Platina I am curious about what happens when works get released into a…
When you’re new back to making after a considerable break initially it’s easy to ‘have fun and be playful’ in the workshop, but now after two years in the HS2 project and part way through another 2 years in HS3, I can feel my process tightening up. It’s less about fun and much more about…
I’ve been working on my pieces to send over for the exhibition at Platina in Stockholm. They are quite domestic, protective shelters weathering adversity; fire, water and the ravages of time. The pieces seem quiet to me, which is fine, I’m feeling peaceful and quiet. I’m a little sad not to be going…
As part of the Objectspace exhibition, there were several pairs of collaborators who participated in the artist’s talk following the opening. Not being a natural public speaker, but recognizing it’s often part of the requirements of an exhibiting maker, I did a short ToastMasters course a couple of years ago. To go from a position…
As well as the catalogue, I also produced a series of 152 sterling silver and steel rings titled The Evolutionary Pinch, based on the opposable finger and thumb (detail pictured). My start point involved an exploration of what makes humans unique within the animal kingdom – namely their ability to use tools to make more tools. As a…
My final collaborators were; Juliet Black, Kirsten Haydon and Mary-Jane Duffy. Juliet is a graphic designer and photographer, we met most days across several weeks to put the catalogue together. The process of crafting how a publication communicates through paper weight and colour, typography, layout, binding, size, color of headings, and length of the publication, print…
My second collaborator was Sondra Bacharach, a Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy Programme at Victoria University whose research is in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Sondra’s speed and ability to make connections between my tangential ideas was a thing of beauty. Our conversations were reciprocally fertile in growing new leads and our mutual admiration for the…
The start point for my collaboration was the title Tool as Jewel, building on previous explorations of utility coupled with economics, the natural environment and the object, it also gave room to extend and translate earlier research into materials, techniques, wearable objects, images and text. It offered a brilliant opportunity to collaborate with several people; two writers,…
Initially I was curious about the relevance of collaboration to my singular and slightly isolated way of making. Through a masterclass with Hilde de Deckers in the early stages of HS3 (images attached) we were all encouraged to broadly explore what collaboration means both individually and as a group and in what form these…
I began the HS2 project in 2014 with the aim of exhibiting as much as possible to accelerate my practice after a hiatus for parenthood. After more exhibitions, masterclasses and jewellery travel opportunities than I could count, I definitely feel accelerated. I determined that I am my first audience, but that I have a real…
A small insight into the book that we produced – words and images are the product of conversations between Nichola and I, with print and layout designed by Aaron. ‘what is the nature of the breath which moves within an inanimate object, that forms the resonance with the audience, the intimate, the voodoo of negative…
First Handshake3 exhibition at Objectspace Gallery, Auckland? Check! I presented twenty works representing different stages of the evolutionary process – from very early beginnings (2 polystyrene balls connected by a piece of steel wire) to the most recent iterations (black folded and connected aluminium pieces – one to be worn on the face and the…
A few weeks before Ruudt left for Japan we had a Skype chat to talk about presentation options for the Object space show. We ended the conversation having agreed a general framework for me to flesh out and test. Our starting point, suspended works over rubbish bins to represent the knife-edge of survival versus extinction…
Mana Mana refers to an extraordinary power, essence or presence. This applies to the energies and presences of the natural world. There are degrees of mana and our experiences of it, and life seems to reach its fullness when mana comes into the world. The most important mana comes from Te Kore – the realm…
Living in an engineering family allows me to recognize the importance of tools and the ability to create tools that make making a little easier. A while back I also had an interesting discussion with jeweler Roy Mason about adapting what is accessible to create working supports in your studio. Not everything that helps you…
My NASA Earth Facebook feed tells me there has been a few Perseid meteors showering down on earth this week. There have also been quite a few Meteors flying around my house.
Here are the finished images of Ben and my collaboration at Objectspace. The chair I selected and modified using parts from Ben’s chair is the floral print chair entitled Transplant/67503288 and Ben’s chair is the steel and timber stool entitled Transplant/5084110. When we installed the works we wanted them to seem like the two chairs…
HANDSHAKE 3 