Working across two projects in the lead up to MJW has got my mind well and truely in two places. On the one hand, I am thinking about the physical qualities of a material (plastic); contemplating its geological impact – how tiny particles can circulate our oceans, potentially sediment and conglomerate to make new forms…
Meanwhile…… Coming up in March, Handshake 3 has two seperate exhibitions running during Munich Jewellery week. The first show cases existing work (although in my case I am developing a few more pieces) which has been curated by Liesbeth den Besten, Sofia Björkman and Peter Deckers; and the second calls for new work, responding to the…
Image of the day – Minerals and gemstones courtesy of early 70’s periodical New Zealand’s Nature Heritage
Handshake meets the dialogue collective Just how do you collaborate on top of collaborating? Where does it start, where does it end and what’s in the middle, what becomes of two groups of people from opposite sides of the world when they have to make work together? Recently I have tried to find examples…
In the time between the Handshake show at Objectspace and ar Platina I also had a solo show at Avid Gallery in Wellington. This work – called ‘Accumulations of Plastic Matter’ – became the basis for the work I produced for Platina, and am currently developing further for the HS showcase at Munich in March.…
For a while now, I have been accumulating dust, shavings, and off cuts of plastic in my studio. It started with a project where I used lino tools to carve texture into the surface of some vinyl and couldn’t bring myself to throw away the neat pile of gratings caught in my bench cloth. I…
Project 1 – Photos am/pm – April 2016 https://dialoguemeetshandshake.wordpress.com Project 2 – String of words, am/pm – April 2016 HS – Morning/light Lighten up / Soft haze / The sun rises over the range of hills, a ray hits the glass houses on the windowsill, fracting around the room. / bright / cupboard is…
Earlier this year, Helen invited me to Munich to attend her upcoming workshop, Structures, Folds and Rivets at Akademie für Gestaltung und Design [Academy of Art and Design]. Helen rarely does workshops these days and she suggested it was a perfect opportunity to work through making a prototype from beginning to end that wasn’t over…
‘She had always liked to dress neatly, and remained fastidious all her life. She reflected the styles of her late Victorian youth by dressing usually in a navy or black dress, with a lace jabot at her neck, held by a brooch.’ Megan Hutching – Over the Wide and Trackless Sea: The Pioneering Women and…
I’m off to Munich tomorrow to spend a week with Helen and do her ‘Structures, folds, rivets’ 5 day workshop, https://www.hwk-muenchen.de/ all very exciting and I’m looking forward to making and discussing without being at different ends of the earth! Then its off to Stockholm to meet up with the other Handshaker’s for the Platina exhibition http://www.platina.se/Pressrelease/Handshake_press.html and…
Throughout the collaboration project with Nichola I have been working away in the background developing works for the upcoming show at Platina. Many of the musings that have fed into this work made it into the book we created together, but other references have been sitting on the side line. Here are two books that…
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…
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…
What does the space between the feminine and the masculine look like? This question to myself has drawn me towards a statement below about the work of Louise Bourgeois; ‘Through the use of abstract form and a wide variety of media, Bourgeois dealt with notions of universal balance, playfully juxtaposing materials conventionally considered male or…
Handshake 3 at Objectspace, Auckland. July -August 2016 Under the the umbrella of an exhibition that is about collaboration, Nichola and I decided to explore new territory together and create a kind of document – one that charts the space of getting to know and work with one another. Our underlying thread was of fragments, including exchanges…
True collaboration is a very tricky thing. Its also not every bodies cup of tea, and understandably so. It means giving up control and knowing the partners working processes very well, not to mention trusting their intellectual capacity. Forced collaboration is more or less impossible and only chance can save the parties involved from…
HANDSHAKE 3 