End-Point Statement: Christine Imlay-McLean

‘PERSEVERANCE BRINGS A SMILE IN THE END’.

This project with all it’s potential for fun and hilarity has been a real struggle for moi!  Several attempts at quirky interpretation fell off the wagon and had me almost reaching for the happy pills. True.

Whats more, the smiley face began to haunt me with a twisted vengeance and began to pop up all over my visual diary grinning benignly on almost every page! Aaaaargh!!!

One day, by my hands but not of my own volition, I found myself cutting out a smiley face from 925 silver. I was somewhat disgusted at the blatant waste of precious material but now I was committed and in fact had just created a brooch back of sorts…

My piece evolved using deconstructed flora, reconstructed with the addition of plastic and silver which I reticulated to recreate the texture of real petals. The brooch became two, connected by lengths of plastic tube and when pinned to a form, the smiley was in evidence with garish grin, yet again!

More haunting...

The final result definitely had me grinning – loving the plastic and living the smile!

Thank you Helen and thank you Yung-huei.

End Statement: Jewellery Has Become Secularized

A piece of material travelled all the way from where my idol Lisa Walker lives, New Zealand to Australia, Sydney College of Arts.

I saw a zip lock bag with my name misspelt sitting amongst my accumulated junk. When I picked it up to see what I have received, I saw straight away what it was.

It was a plastic label from a fashion retail store.

And then laughed at the hypocrisy of receiving this from a jeweller.

But it all came together with the text that I received which was:

Fortify or Disintegrate?

Contort or unravel?

Radiate or Mute?

This text was always lingering inside my head and came out cleanly when I asked my self:

Handmade or Machine made?

I thought it might be interesting to make a piece of jewellery that sits in the ambiguous realm of not being able to be to classify it handmade or machine made. In other words, I wanted to investigate the concept of ‘what makes something genuine?’

Jewellery today, sold at fashion retail stores doesn’t care about the longevity of the jewellery. It targets consumers who are looking for cheap alternative to match their winter outfit.  The title of this work Jewellery Has Become Secularized comes from Roland Barthes’s “The Language of Fashion”.  Barthes addresses the shift in values in society where jewellery we see today no longer made from material found in earth’s soil but imitations of precious metal and gemstones. The secularization of jewellery has visibly affected the very substance of jewellery. However I don’t think this is a bad thing, since it signifies that jewellery has become democratic. No longer is jewellery for the rich.

The final piece was in reference to the first shock I got from the material I received from Whitieria. And I am proud to say I am a jeweller, who shamelessly used brought jewellery in hypocritical way. This project changed my perspective on material, rather than pushing the boundaries of the actual material I looked at jewellery on the rack as a material similar to Duchamp readymade.

Is it the end or just the beginning?

(front) Pearl Plan Brooch-Sunni final piece

So times up, once again I’m about to head off to meet Kelly down at the same coffee shop for the hand over, this time of the finished piece. It seems like only moments ago we were in the same spot in Newtown (Wellington) handing over pearls and text and now exchanging them back in an entirely new form. The exchange project has been an absolute joy to work on.

My response to the actual material (the unwavering desire to crush it into a powder) was amusing to observe, the initialidea to scatter the powdered pearl onto the surface of the enamel was given up for what felt like a far more appropriate relevant site on the reverse of the brooch, in a small hollow sweetly representative the ‘scientific’ miracle that is the growth of a pearl. The illustration in pencil on the front is a pattern for a spherical paper pearl (one side of, when folded according to lines and tabs etc) and is reflective of the material, the text and the packaging both items arrived in. Thank you Sydney, enjoy..

Pearl Plan Brooch

Mid and End-point Statements – Yunghuei Chao

mid point statement

The original text came from a poem The Rime of an Ancient Mariner written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I searched for the poem and summaries people have posted on the internet, the characters in the poem are:

ancient mariner

wedding guest

the sailor

albatross

death

The Night-mare Life-in-Death

pilot

pilot’s boy

hermit

then I picked “sailors” and “albatross” as my inspiration, and there are some explanation that I got interested in:

-the sailors blamed at first for killing the albatross, when the wind disappeared for bringing bad luck, then praised when the mist disappeared.

-mocking people who are too quick to judge

-the sailors are too eager to discern, prefer to see things in black and white terms

That made me had an idea of a body piece meant to be worn as a luck charm, with two extreme forms that can be transformed in some way.

Later on I realised that I’ve spent too much time on my text, so went back to the material again. I kept on playing with the spring, tried to pull it to its extreme without ruining the tension, and the negative space created between wires while pulling it has attracted me, then I came up with a few paper models.

end point statement

The silhouette of the bird with the flying gesture to show the direction it is facing, how people have to rely each other when they are away from home and land to avoid fear and loneliness.

The mechanics I used in this piece is something new to me but wanted to try out for so long, I started with metal sheets right away instead of paper or plastic models for more accuracy. Since I wanted to keep the idea of a charm, the size was less than 10cm in diameter, it took me a bit longer than expected to finish from redoing the piece, but I am happy with the final result.

I don’t even want to see that stone

So i have some fun fresh things hapening,

I like whatever is happening. It is a necklace. I think it is a bib, representing our first learning steps, but it is a super cool bib so don’t you worry.

It has used my material and you will be all happy to see that i went out of my way to do that… L.O.L

I truly like this piece. Empathy…. we all learn something every day and it should be rejoiced by wearing a silly but flash bib.

Apathy………. we don’t care that people stair.

Ok I’ll look fo my stone

Ok i do want to try and use the material i was given….

Yes I could stretch myself a bit more……

so i am in Ireland on a holiday  and could really use the challenge of nutting this out again. S i had a play. Double necklace. Besled stone in leather, single necklace. Bib shape like the learners we are as students. Fun color, excitement, celebration…. Empathy…… I don’t care i am wearing a bib…. apathy. L.O.L

End statement- Dia Cristina

So after playing around with ideas and materials I finally came up with a resolution. After thinking through, I decided to make a brooch. The brooch is quite intersting, as I wanted to capture the contrasting elements between the text and material. This aspect is highlighted through the brooch’s surface, as it  contains contrasting dcorative features.

Overall, I’m glad i had the chance to participate in this event as it was a great learning experience. It’ll be exciting to find out what others have come up with in their finished pieces.

note that came to my mind.

Uglyness.

Ugliness can bring criousity.
the rope meets  to latex.

Surroundings can inspires you and effect your making.
This piece was not nessesary fun. more of challenig for me to be honest at first.

I was not sure where i am going,where I wanted to go.

I Couldnt see my piece till the end the latex dry. It was experiment.
I didnt want use glue or sawing method that came to my mind first,
I thought That was so Boring. I dont Know why.

Latex. I never thought of using this.
Smells terrible and ugly.
But I did.

Turned out curiousity and interasting looking
SO ugly SO beautiful in a way,
What Beauty? that something I have been thinking and still havent find the answer in a word yet..

making a shape while latex is wet  is new method to create a form., Almost like softwax which I had been using for a while.

I love the tactile feeling when i am making by hand.
The piece is not me, bus very me.
so rough.

P.S I like peeling dried latex from my hand:)

Do you like varalie there?

first latexing

end point statement – sarah read

Fly my pretties

This project has been a blast; thanks to Kelly and Joyce for organising, also thanks to rui for my text STAY FOOLISH and amanda for my materials (formica chips), which have both been great to work with.

Note: No formica chips were harmed in the making of this piece (inspiration taken instead from their gift-tag shape and their repeating-unit-ness); they are now happily re-homed with Vanessa, Whiti’s queen of reclaimed laminates:

Formica chips find their true home

End statement- Sam Kelly

What a busy time it’s been. Really looking forward to Sydney now and the break and the shopping and the opening and getting to meet everyone and see everyones pieces and…

 Have thoroughly enjoyed being involved in this process. Gave me the opportunity to play with my usual suspects in a different way, opening up new avenues to explore. Am pretty stoked with my final response. Now I’m going to sit in the sunshine on my deck  and have a much deserved glass of wine. See you all soon…woop woop

Morpheus

The final weeks of making my piece was a lot simpler than in the beginning.  I had really tied myself up in knots and ‘what to make’ began intruding  my  dreamspace… every night!

One night i dreamt about myself sitting on top of a grand piano in Rodin’s pose with the piano tied around my neck as a pendant!!!  Many nights were spent swimming in the ocean’s watery dreamscape with molten plastic swirling all around.

My subconscious had decided to take over where the intellect was flailing. Morpheus -  god of dreams had come to the rescue!

End Statement 2 – Melissa

You were stolen.

I cried for a bit.

And then I remade you with a few changes.  Better than before.

The End (for now).

End statement – Melissa

That’s it I’m done.  You are free to go now.

It was a bit frustrating until I accepted it wasn’t right to try and change you.   But I like the end result.  I think it works well.

Good luck out there x

Helen Mok- End Point Statement

Towards the end here is my statement

Title:  The land of the long white cloud

Materials: Sterling Silver, Perspex, Magnet, Iron Filing

Having never traveled to New Zealand before, I have always heard it to be a beautiful place with the most mesmerizing scenery.

In ‘The Exchange Project’ with New Zealand students, I was sent a container of iron filings materials and a summary of text introducing New Zealand. From the text, I selected a few keywords to help inspire my work: New Zealand, Aotearoa, remote, outlandish scenery and magical.

These words have become key elements in my project (Aotearoa – the most widely know and accepted Maori name of New Zealand. The word can be broken up as (ao = cloud; tea = white; roa = long) and thus translated to be ‘The land of the long white cloud’).

I used the iron filings and my ideas of New Zealand to create three rings. The three rings make up the outline of the New Zealand map. In keeping with the idea Aotearoa, I have used silver to present the white colour and silver lining of the clouds.

I wanted to add something special to the project. The iron filings became very useful for this effect. I filled the iron filing inside the cloud rings. From the beginning my idea was to create the iron filings as landscape scenery, like mountains that I saw from photographs of New Zealand. However, my idea of New Zealand’s landscape may be different from someone else’s idea or someone who has actually seen its landscape. Thus, the ring allows the wearer to create their own idea of New Zealand’s scenery using the movements of the iron filings.

yohoo finally all done

Ending Point- Rachel Gaynor

I really love the concept of time and the different ways the many different ways that it can be interpreted.

My object has been made to resemble a clock however it intentionally does not tell time. My piece contains a clock face that has been covered only revealing one number, 12. This number is significant because I believe that it is both the ending and the beginning, it’s the number that ties two days together and the time when New Years Eve ends and a new year begins. It is because of this that I believe 12 is number that signifies the continuous flow of time. I have finished the piece so that it looks worn and weathered, except for the clock face which has been left so that the number will show through clearly.

My piece is a result from the poem about time and the metal circle which looked old and tattered. It combines the concept of eternally moving time and the wear and damage that comes with it.

Finale!!

Ooopsie I got into trouble with my brother for saying my text, “We are all made of star stuff” was cheesy.

And I quote….

Can’t believe you diss on Carl… he is one of my heroes
We are all made of star stuff.. He means it literally… that we are composed of the elements that resulted from billennia (not a real word) of evolution throughout the multiverse from the BigB(ang) or whatever it was that God started all this shenanigans with

You should watch Cosmos… greatest doco ever…
Or youtube Carl Sagan flatland… he is a genius in every possible sense.

Woah! Sorry Ed. I took the quote totally on face value and treated it as a celebrity comment.  We all have the ability to become something meaningful in society if not part of the cosmic explosion..

Thanks Carl!

End point statement – Linda Huang

Looking back at the history of cross border trading, that initially flourished from the aspiration and appreciation of other cultures, However now has gradually evolved (?degenerated?) into an act of greed and exploitation.
The object that I have made is based on the current issue of BP patrol leakage.
Maybe this is a signal of coming to the edge of things, we shall embrace our thoughts, to reconsider our needs and priorities.

End Statement-Kmei

This project has been fun and a good challenge for me in my first year.

I used plastic dice and silver, some of which has been either sawn, filed or placed on different angles to try and throw the viewer off or lead their eyes astray.I did this action in relation to my text.Leaving some surfaces as is, was to purposly contrast the cleanliness of  the plastic die as well as the drilled holes or tube to mimic the “dots” on the dice.Iv tried to keep the design simple and bare almost stripping the dice away from the “bling bling casino” feelings that I recieved at the beginning of this project.

I think the message I am trying to put across isnt too difficult to read but would love to hear the comments of others in relation to the pieces.

Louise Mankelow – End point Statement

Well object – it feels like the long  journey we’ve had together is coming to an end.

It’s time to set you free.

Time for you to go off into the world.

I know you will have many more adventures without me and that you’ll find someone out there who’ll hold you close and treasure you.  The Lord knows you’ve sure had your fair share of knocks.

It’s time for some fun, to see new things and to start again.

Jude Carswell…Whitireia

The echoes of Shannon albo’s words have evolved into blue moons and tangled love threads; dark and brittle remnants…the rub-on transfers, now sticks of rubbed-on moonlight.

Final piece and statement – Noxious?

My gem sits off centre with the chain hanging beside it, in the manner some pocket watches were attached to a fob chain.

I enjoyed the freedom of my text. It was wide open to interpretation. Uncertainty causes me to lose valuable making time as I angst over the what, how and will it look good? questions. Once started, if I am unsure of the technique involved, I labour over each small step. Procrastination! Anyone else know what I mean??? The final piece is model two. Model one just didn’t ‘cut the mustard’ to use a yellow reference!

I have researched further into gorse. A link to our colonial European past. A noxious weed. I have a new respect for it. It is utilised in regeneration of areas, providing shelter to young native plants. Besides dye, I have discovered the flowers may be eaten and used to make wine, cordial and an essence to combat depression. A Wellington based artist Regan Gentry held an exhibition ‘Of Gorse Of Course’ in 2007. As the William Hodges artist in residence in Invercargill, he explored the artistic possibilities of gorse. Seemingly he produced gorse wine, perfume, toilet paper and a picket fence.

Fun! That yellow acrylic has inspired me after all!

I always change my mind!

New Material

Last week I finished my piece after fighting my pink shiny lens to the bitter end. Then with 5 days to go I had a change of heart, painted over the lens with enamel (such satisfaction) and started all over again….

I loved the curves and reflection of the lens but just couldn’t get past the colour.

I found my own lens to reference this and added my favourite colour,  ORANGE!

The text  I received prompted me to explore my environment.

My piece – like the city,  has hidden treasures to un-cover…if you take a minute to stop. And LOOK.

Ring with lens insert that I painted!

Karren Dale-end statement

The end is nigh…..

C, D, E, F – Beginning to End – Michelle Batten

Sticky Trap

925 Silver and Embroidery Thread

Beginning Statement

I’ve been staring at these metal pieces on my desk all week and am, in all honesty, uninspired!

I think that they are parts from an assembly line, to be made into something else, something functional and beige. The shape of the metal pieces do evoke some imagery though. Nat G said that they look like bones and I have to agree. They resemble the shape of a bone and emote something old, cold, fragile and dead. Wether that be the remains of a body or the leftovers of an abandoned assembly line factory, I’m not sure. What I do know is that I am going to be looking at the text I received a lot more, to get some better ideas on what to make!

Mid-Point Statement

I still have bones on the mind.

However, the text is sparking more ideas.

“Promise me Nothing”

I google’d this phrase (as you do) and the first search result was a fan made video about Justin Beiber. Hmmph.

Then I began thinking about how those words link to a specific way of living, without promises and without ties. I believe that it’s about independence and living without any emotional debt to yourself and the people that surround you.

What is the value of a promise? It’s a powerful thing to say, that you will “promise” something. Even if the earth stops spinning, I promise you that I will do this thing. Or I will die trying. I’ve made promises to myself and others that I am proud of, the ones that have been successful. I’ve achieved life goals and made friends with promises. I’ve been disappointed and hurt when a promise isn’t carried out. They carry responsibility and emotional burden. Is this what the author of this quote is avoiding? Are promises more like traps than anything else? Traps that can’t physically harm you, but leave the ability to play on your emotions, perhaps.

I’m thinking about trap imagery now, and ways I can make something of it.  Mouse traps, cages, nests, boxes, wombs, webs, springs, caves…

End-Point Statement

The ring that I have made for this project is about the fragility of a promise, based on the text I received which stated “Promise me Nothing”.

I thought that this statement may have been written by someone hurt by a promise, who has reflected on this and decided to never be bound or trapped by them again, thus stating, promise me nothing.

My material was an assortment of thin metal parts which had a bone-like structure, and whilst I found it difficult to incorporate these into my final design, I wanted to capture the fine, fragile quality of the metal in my finished piece.

I ended up creating a ring, based on a spiders-web pattern, saw cut from silver. I chose a web because I wanted to choose a symbol that demonstrates the feeling of entrapment within something fragile – which is what a promise is. It can make you feel bound to something, though there is no strong physicality to this feeling of entrapment. I then bound the piece in embroidery thread, a laborious act, which I hope further emphasises this feeling of being stuck within something and wishing to break free one day.

…an end or just another beginning?

And so I come to the end (or rather perhaps a beginning?)

I decided not to fight the bubbles, but to embrace them, and to see where they took me. Lots of experimentation. Resin cast polystyrene balls, transparent plastic vacuum forms, silicon casts, resin casts dipped in paint, dipped in silicon. Lots of mounted shapes and forms on wires and hanging from strings to allow wet surfaces to drip and dry and set. It all started to look like a bit of a landscape, in some strange alien land.

And it got me thinking.

There was a hint of a suggestion that bleublweblaoblawblaewazblablarblablaeblaed may have some connection to a language. Not like any language I have heard before …but maybe a spell? …or the speak of the people from a far off distant world?

A landscape and a language.

I bet Dr Seuss would have had something to say about that.

And I wondered what language they spoke in the Pointless Forest where round-headed Oblio and his faithful dog Arrow were exiled, only to discover everything has a point, even when it has no point?

And I looked again at my minature land, and saw that I had a world of pointless objects waiting for translation.

And it was just a matter of deciding which one to choose (first)…

End statement- Mieke de Court (Whitireia)

I think the Exchange Project, for me, may have revolutionised the way I work with my jewellery. This project, combined with our brief for the term, focussed on materiality, has really opened my eyes to other ways of working which I had not experienced before. These past few weeks, engrossed in my Exchange piece, as well as doing a week-long workshop with Melinda Young, have really allowed me to design and make jewellery in a completely different dimension. Exploring the materiality of materials has actually been just plain fun!  So what lays before you,  sums up my experience of this amazing project; social, trans tasman design, experimentation, trials, trials and more trials, many a smashed up china plate and, principally, a satisfied maker.

to the end

Kia ora koutou! nga mihi!!After working through some more ideas and materials, i settled on familiar and iconic.  from the materials i was sent( the copper sheet), i was more inspired by the colour than the material itself.  The ideas that confronted me with the text i was sent, concerned themes and concepts that relate to my work in general.  Cultural identity,  national identity, being Maori and being Kiwi.  How we relate to each other as well as how we relate and understand people from other countries such as Australia.  New Zealand and Aussie have strong ties and relationships on multiple levels.  What we know of each other is very much determined by our experiences, interactions, information from all sources, tv, internet ect.sports, culture, arts.  There were so many avenues to pursue, one commonality we share which was a founding identifier was that both countries were colonised.  Then i looked at currency-coins and found iconic images, kangaroo and tui.

Silvia – End Point statement

My final piece became a simpler version of what I originally planned, however, I am still happy with the design. It is playful and the dark brown of the material and a silver ring shank represent the ‘black and white’ as quoted from the text; well as much as I could incorporate those two colours. I’m happy that I managed to incorporated a red and yellow spiral. However, due to the fact that I left myself with little time to finish the piece, I never ended up making the lid, though I think the ring still works well to represent certain lines from the text which stood out to me, such as, ‘black, white’/ ‘red, yellow’, ‘detach from body’, and ‘spiralling’. I think the final piece is fun, infant- like and I hope when people view the ring or wear it they can see the playfulness and infant representations through the colours, spring and movement, the block- like shapes I formed out of my recieved material and therefore, are inspired to think about childhood memories.

The only part I’m dissapointed about with my final piece is that I know I could have finished it much better, by polishing and joining the components together alot better, this was due to my poor time management and the fact I left myself limited time once all my other uni work was due to complete it. 

 Overall, I found this project worth pursuing, and it goes to show that inspiration can come from anywhere, from any text, and any piece of material. Also that in future if I am ever stuck for inspiration I can find a text and ,materials and try to incorporate them into a body of work.

　

　

End point statement – Angela Porritt

When I began this project I imagined my piece(s) with a polished brass finish. But as I started to piece my materials together the yellowing colour of the sheet music looked too new and constructed in comparison, not destined to meet, the meaning of my text.  I decided to try a brushed look.  The brass was a little tarnished from being handled and mused over.  As I worked it with the sandpaper the brass below the tarnish gave a little sparkle but did not completely remove the aged look that it had acquired.  Perfect, it was meant to be.

 There were so many pages to the Concerto that I wanted to make more and more ideas came to mind.  The brushed finish was working well with the sheet music but did it relate to the Chinese text in it’s own right?  I felt not. As I pierced another character out of a shiny new sheet of brass I recalled a conversation with Yung-huei about how to break the lines of the character without changing the meaning.  She showed me where the breaks would be made when incorporating text into signs.  I thought of a shiny brass plaque on a building I used to walk past when I lived in Ireland.  The softness and warmth of brass plaques, door knockers and prayer wheels touched frequently by human hands.  I felt that this lucky character, were it on a sign, would draw people to touch it.  I started working on a piece that would reflect this.  Moving some acrylic across the music like a magnifying glass I loved the way it captured short sequences of notes.  I thought about listening to the music again to create my own composition from groups of notes.  It seemed too planned and calculated so I chose them randomly.  I found that in this instance I didn’t need the floral window to create a melody of serendipity.  Reading the blog and considering the journey my material and text had made from New Zealand to Australia I began to wonder what our countries had in common in relation to these items. 

 Chinese immigrants.  I remembered my childhood friend of Chinese decent.  She could play the piano extremely well.  We would get together on the weekends or after school to play music.  She had books and books of contemporary music.  Some songs she didn’t know but could still play directly from the sheet music.  I knew just about all of them and would sing the melody for her so she could get the feel of the accompaniment right.  We lost contact for over 10 years but have recently reconnected.  She lives here in Sydney.  We she first moved to Sydney taxi drivers asked where she was from.  She would reply “Australia”.  Her accent is the same as mine.  I thought about the Chinese immigrants who came to Australia during the minerals boom of the late 1800’s and about the natural patterns of migration.  I thought of white Australian’s complaining about the number of Asian immigrants coming to Australia.  I thought of how their ancestors ‘migrated’ over a far greater distance to get here than would be feasible without ships and modern transportation.

 Last weekend I was phoned by a friend who was moving an old piano into his house.  It cost $50.  So cheap!  How could it be so cheap?  I recalled something I had read recently that claimed there were the same number of pianos as people in Australia before the turn of the last century.  I thought of the joy they must have brought at a time when televisions and MP3 players didn’t exist.  I wondered if New Zealand had a similar history.  I don’t know much about pianos in New Zealand other than the movie The Piano.  I recalled the scenes where the piano was being hauled up from the beach and the pleasure it gave the woman who played it.

 I started thinking about our piano.  It was my Grandmothers piano – a pianola or player piano.  Bittersweet memories.  I had lessons as a child.  I wasn’t very good at practicing.  I was impatient to play songs not scales.  When I left home I couldn’t take it with me.  Mum & Dad asked routinely if they could sell it to regain some floor space and I repeatedly said no.  One day I would have a place for it.  I always played it when I visited home.  Not very well, but enjoyably singing along to my stilted playing.  I was a much better singer than player.  As a child I loved having friends gathered around it taking turns pedalling and singing the old songs on the reels.  I knew the words by heart to oldies like “If you knew Suzy”, “Blue Danube”, “Mocking Bird Hill”, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square” and had done since I was very small.  One day I came across some contemporary reels in a keyboard store.  I bought them and played them but don’t remember what they were.

For me the piano was a connection to my Grandmother.  Unlike me she played very well.  My brother knew her briefly, she died when he was 6 or 7 just before I was born.  Dad said she was a very generous and kind woman.  A newspaper article containing her obituary said she frequently left anonymous food hampers on the doorsteps of families who she knew were doing it tough.  My sister has a lot of her features.  In their childhood photos they look almost identical, my parents gave her Grandma’s watch for this reason.  I was given her sisters, my Great Aunt’s.  As I grew my hands became bigger than hers I could no longer put it on.  I put it away in a trinket box for safe keeping until I had a little girl of my own to give it to.  My sister now has both having found it while I was away at uni and claimed it to be Grandma’s. The watch was her connection. Mine was the piano.

 One day my sister-in-law phoned and asked if she could have the piano.  Her parents had a piano but she wanted her brother to have it.  At the time I didn’t have anywhere to put it and couldn’t afford to transport it, tune it or maintain it.  I was living at the coast and concerned about how the high humidity might affect it.  I didn’t know how to say no.  She asked for it for my nephew who I adored.  He didn’t play it much.  She played it quite a lot and much better than I.  She and my brother are now divorced.  He still has the piano.  I thought of asking him for it.  But his new partner has recently started learning to play.  I never played it again.  This project reminded me how much I miss that music in my life.  Were my materials, text and I fated to meet for that reason?  Perhaps one day in the future I will find my own $50 piano. I don’t play well enough to buy a new one.

forkishly flowered

ok, so i played with my plastic forks, bending them hot under the heat of my grandmothers hairdryer smelling of old woman’s hair spray.  but, as much as the forks were fun and great, i fucked it when it came to interpreting them in stainless steel.  i was unable to pull off the sketchy linear style of using simple wire to build up form and texture to make a big bracelet.  i tried so hard in many different ways, but it always ended up looking like crap….

so instead of trying to reinvent my entire approach to form and making, i decided to take it easy.  with some help from the 50 forks and the quote by paul fallot that i got, i tried to get a new perspective on my usual way of working – not completely re-inventing it, but rather re-invigorating it….

i started thinking of a flower bracelet of many petals (inspired by my quote that mentions the necessity of superfluity through the sheer joy of flowers), thinking of the fork tines as possible petals, and using the curves at the sides of the forks as the basis for the petals.  pretty reductionist, quite abstract, and maybe a bit of a cop-out, but hey – it was great to bring some fresh air to work that i already had in mind.  it shifted the design around, and with help from my girlfriend (who kept on saying that it needed to be practical), i started to get excited….

i designed the petals of this crazy industrial flower i had in my head, and ordered 50 to be cut (same as the promised number of forks on the pack), and when they arrived, i started to clean them up – a very laborious process in 3mm stainless steel sheet….  poor fingers.

(i also realised while making this, why i love stainless steel so much.  it is the promise of perfection, the clarity of the unattainable ideal – the promise of the clean hard line of perfect order and control that would solve all the problems of my messy fucked-up existence and allow me to sleep easily at night.  it is almost spiritual, otherworldly - the promise of perfection….)

anyway, i connected all the petals using a stainless cable with a very long spring next to it (handmade in one 150mm piece!) that makes it snap open from bud into flower – POP!  so you can have this bracelet lying against your wrist, then you punch the air, and the whole thing flips open in a forkishly flowered display that celebrates the promise of stainless steel to deliver us from the tarnished and imperfect concerns of our over-complicated lives.  (i think.)

practically speaking, its too heavy (i have to work on that next time), and i need to make the catch properly (tricky).  there are lots of little imperfections in the curves and in the way it is strung together that i would love to resolve, to get it closer to some humming spinning electrically-charged archetypal ideal, but it is getting there.

all in all, i have throughly enjoyed this exchange project.  i started wanting to work in a completely new way, to be inspired in a completely different direction through new stimulus.  but i am so divergent in all i do creatively, that my real problem is just staying true to my intentions, so i realise i just need to grow up and be more disciplined.  (ha!)  so it was a great thing to bring new thoughts and perspective to work that i was already deeply involved in – to bring this new stimulus to a developed idea.   it has changed this design and opened up a few new possibilities.  which is great.

thanks everyone!  fun!!!

End-point Natalie Gock

It’s all finished!

Our little studio in SCA was alive with buzz and worry, seriously. But when the time came at 3pm we all sighed with relief!

I have decided to name my piece of jewellery A Silent Ode, in recognition of the diggers who died in the world war. The verse that I had with my material was called For the Fallen and I continually went back to the statement, trying to piece together what I was to make. I did make a poppy because i recognised it and associated it with remembrance the most, and then covered the whole flower with poppy seeds for a more defined literal meaning. I thought the most impressionable part of the verse was the part They shall grow not old… Age shall not weary them. I also set out to create something that could be timeless and something that would never change with age.

My work involved alot of me deciding how to include the guitar strings. I wanted to incorporate them because of the fact that they were of no use as I mentioned in my mid-point statement. I decided to use them as the neckpiece that way they are more attached to the wearer. They are wearing part of an instrument that created music that can no longer be heard. I thought by this connection the wearer could be more in tuned to its significance.

I had fun working out a few cold joining techniques. That was hard! but all in the name of learning new ways of making. I really enjoyed this project because of the limitations that it produced throughout the whole experience, what to make! the way to incorporate materials and texts together, finding new methods of joining, using different machine to make things.

I think I wanted to resolve this piece with the things that I have experimented with, I hope people can recognise the different materials with the guitar strings and seeds individually and not just see it for what it is. Maybe it will get you thinking… silently.

Saori – Ending moment

hi…

Exchange project has finished at 3:00 today; my piece was drying up till the ends
I have titled my work today talking with rui, nat and Silvia.. “ How shall I title….
rui says today’s date? like 25th june 2010?

Or OH!  “ My house got moldy because of the rain”?

(This is my issue dumped house/ the owner… at the moment)
And I titled that, which I made such a decision without addressing my work/ concepts not at all… now I am at home I feel oh …. I need to readdress the title FOR SURE AGAIN..
Is it too late? Karin??? Joyce??

As usual I worked from the material, with hand, arranging and rearranging,
And visually I made decision and coated with latex. As very experimental.

I wanted create a wet visual form, (taken from the text of poem “rain”) so I covered few part and then was very in between, Laura told me “ that’s looks like somebody sneezed!) Yes latex on white dries yellowish color, so I covered all the knot in latex

I thought of making the catch in metal but was not suited with the piece so I mad the catch with rope and latex.

I loved the rain before moving in to my new place…the smell of rain the freshness after the rain, which is just like the text I have got, such a beautiful poem but my work will not speak that, more of rain-dump moldy…  is this affected by my surrounding at the moment? As well as luck of investing my time into the piece?

I need to address this more….

Jackie Bell – end point statement

After a few days considering measurements and how to piece this all together, I have finally decided on this:

• A three-finger ring, that can be worn as a ring, or held up the eye and can be looked into.
• it  features a small tunnel-like ring with a small motif of a grim reaper (death representation) soldered at the end of it. 
• Juxtapostioned next to it is a tree, representing life (tree of life), it has a cleaner finish than the rest of the piece, resembling the ‘glow of life’, in comparison to death, overlapping right next to it.
• This is a portrayal of the close link that is often seen between life and death.
• The design of the small tunnel with the grim reaper at the end is also used to symbolise the text, as quoted by the character Roy Batty, from the film Blade Runner (1982),

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. [pause] Time to die.”

• I interpreted this through the tunnel, as a way of physically and metaphorically representing the idea of ‘seeing things’, the grim reaper at the end of the tunnel/eyepiece is death and therefore the viewer is looking past death, looking at death, as well as exploring grief and the sense of losing things.
• The ‘tree of life’ is also there, in the background of death, though also in close proximity at the same time.
• The material brass is used as it is known for tarnishing easily (much like the material I received – it appears to be breaking down quickly), as well as embodying the sense of life and the end of things, ‘losing life’s spark’ , so to speak.
• Black patina and metal paint is used to further represent this tarnished motif as well as incorporating a metaphorical expression of the decaying material.

Overall, I found that this was an interesting project that allowed me to explore various concepts and materials without strict limitations, even though I did end up creating my final piece with the seemingly traditional material of metal.

I am content with the end result, and I quite enjoyed investigating and using symbolism as as strong reference points in my work. At first I was worried about how I would incorporate my (decaying) material, but after a bit of research and exploration I think I came to an interesting conclusion!

revelations, turning points etc.

I thought the obvious associations to “side-effect” were medical, ageing, sickness, medication so I started with “the undesirable consequences of desire”. Even though I regretted it at times, I stuck to this path and my first instinct.

It made a difference that the pipe cleaners happened to be conducive to what I had been working on lately. I worked with wire for a lot of last year. How could I pass up the opportunity to use magnets again when they are made with steal? I let myself work with materials and find solutions in the same ways that I usually do.

I felt like I’d finished making the pieces. Then I posted my mid-point response and read the blog. I thought, oh shit, I’m doing the same old thing again. I ended up making another series of pieces. After I made the second series, I came back to appreciating the first series as a new direction.

I found these great cotton pipe cleaners. I liked their washed out colours and the texture is nicer on the skin. I wanted to keep these ones whole instead of pulling them apart like the synthetic ones.

I didn’t know why pipe cleaners exist. Karin J told me that her dad used pipe cleaners to clean his smoking pipe. Aha! So that’s what they are made for. Duh. You could use cotton ones to clean pipes, but not synthetic ones. Are the synthetic ones made purely for craft purposes?

Rui T said: are you going to go bigger in scale? I took on her point. I’d stopped exploration and was trying to pull it together. I tried making something bigger. I developed the small forms when I was most engaged with the ideas though, so I only put those in.

Words written on your personal laptop, while sitting in your cosy bed, in your dimly lit bedroom change once they are posted on a blog that potentially anyone can read. I debated this private/public complication in my head a lot. Posting your thoughts on the blog is good practice for putting your work in the gallery though!

I recognised the most successful pop songs had poetry in them, so I was trying to move towards that with my words. Be less straightforward. Leave it more open. Push it away.

Sia is wearing a pipe cleaner hat on the cover of her new album! You always see things more often once you start thinking about them.

I finished the first series a while ago now. I can reflect on people’s reactions and experience of wearing it. I think it doesn’t present as particularly challenging, easy to like. Aesthetically pleasing, a bit unusual. Simple structure. Vulnerable. Not very durable.

I made rings in the second series. I haven’t made rings for ages. I worry about how the shank only fits a certain size finger. I was able to make the size adjustable in this design. I’m happy they can fit on a variety of fingers.

A number of themes that have long been arising in my practice came up again while I was making for this project. It has been helpful to see that these themes will appear under different circumstances. My position on some of these matters has strengthened. For other matters the questions continue.

(The beginning of the) End point statement – Caitlin Wood

I think I am ready to start this project now… World, will you wait for me to catch up? Oh well, next time round the merry go round perhaps I will jump on but for now I am content to wander in this rambling bumbling way, sometimes sidewards, sometimes backwards, sometimes upside down but ever onwards….

End Point Statement- Kate Hutchinson (SCA)

I have now produced a necklace that resembles and operates as an electrical circuit.

Having finished my piece, I am happy with how it turned out- everything just fell into place (something that rarely happens for me. Although I didn’t use the particular material I was given, I chose to base my ideas closely around it, while still in relation to the text.

I felt that through this project we were given a lot of space for ideas to evolve and change, and through this I was able to produce something that I probably wouldn’t have thought of under ‘normal’ circumstances.

End Point Statement Georgia Graham

To cleave is both to split and to cling. With pink pearls as my material, my ideas for the making of this project have grown out of a process of thinking about the ways in which text and material intersect.

Pink pearls, pink gums, cleft palate

Pearls as teeth

Pearls washed in milk, teeth kept in milk, bones drinking milk, hooves making milk

Pearls as hooves

Pearls as bones

Cleaved bone, meat cleaver, cleaved limbs,

Rabbits foot clung to for luck, cows hooves make adhering glue

Earth split open, torn asunder by cloven hoof.

Berri Eggert – End point statement

Well I have reached the end. I have used up all my material which I am very sad about because it seems like it has endless possiblilities. I have produced pieces that are about passing on decisions to someone else  and I have also made a piece that celebrates choice and being in charge of making decisions. I feel like it is very appropriate to my practice – a constant struggle between wanting the freedom to do whatever I want without having to explain each decision and being paralized by infinate choice.