Week 10
As the topic of memorials can be quite broad
for someone wanting to create a series or just one individual artistic work I
have focused on just one kind of memorial. When we brain stormed in class I
realised that there are a myriad of different ways to remember or celebrate
life and death and every kind of achievement. The most common of which is the
memorial of death, and it is this that I want to explore, not death as such but
the memory of it. In particular I have chosen to take my inspiration form
mourning jewellery. From my research I have found that people of the Victorian era
were the most fascinated by death and remembrance. They used jewellery as a
means to capture some kind of personal attachment to a deceased person. More
often than not they would incorporate locks of a dead person’s hair into a
brooch or ring, or even as a fob watch chain. The patterns could become quite
intricate. It was said at the time in a popular ladies magazine: “Hair
is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials, and survives us,
like love.”[1]
This idea of a personal remembrance is something I want to explore in my
project. Jewellery as a means to remember is, in my opinion, a very personal
and effective way to keep the memory of a loved one close. How much closer can
you can you get than something which is worn on the person day after day. It is
literally wearing your heart on your sleeve.
The way I am going to do it is by making some kind
of jewellery piece or pieces, in which there is a personal message or token of
one or many. I have been very influenced by the designer and artist; Hannah af
Ekstrom, who creates jewellery that is full of meaning. She uses jewellery as a
means to contain and carry whatever concept or impression she is interested in.
that is what I will be doing, using jewellery as a devise or container of
personal remembrance.
"yours sincerely, Aubrey Beardsley": rope work necklace
Hannah af Ekstrom also uses a lot of textiles in her work, in
particular she incorporates black sailing rope which she wound and stitched
together. These results in a very strong graphic quality that makes it stand
out not just against the skin and clothing when worn, but also when it is
simply standing alone.
Another artist who I have drawn inspiration from is Melanie
Bilenker; she also takes a lot from the Victorian era’s fascination with death
and remembering life. She uses hair, just as the Victorians did, as a means to
remember and embed meaning into the works. However instead of using the hair as
a means to keep a dead loved one close, she uses it to remember the trivial
moments in her life, which in a sense is a memorial of past actions. “I am very interested in commemoration”[2].
Much like the Victorian mourning jewellery, Bilenker’s works are incredibly
intricate and because of this the meaningless and banal moments she documents
become important and worth remembering.
[1]
‘Godey’s
Lady’s Book’, May 1855. Sarah Josepha Hale: editor 1837-1877
[2] ‘ the new
artisans’- Olivier Dupon
WEEK 12
Project
inspirations and ideas
Calligraphy: this
has such a history; its origins are intertwined with the origins of humanity
itself. Ever since humans could communicate they have attempted to document
such communications, the earliest known being cave drawings and progressing
from there. The Egyptians created hieroglyphs that were highly stylized and beautiful.
From here the art of the written word went from nation to nation, empire to
empire, the Greeks to the Romans, from the Romans to the Christian world of
bible writing, documenting the word of God in beautiful letters. The art of the
written word flourished in the renaissance. This was merely the journey of
calligraphy through the western world, its journey through Asia and especially
china is equally enthralling, with calligraphy still being a highly prized to
this day. However not only Asia and Europe have the monopoly on swirly writing,
the Middle East and northern Africa, not to mention India, Nepal etc. have
their own calligraphy styles also.
Why do I want to use
Calligraphy? Because much like mourning jewellery, calligraphy has a long
and rich history of documentation and memory. We write things down to remember
them whether it be our weekly shopping list, class notes or religious
teachings. This project is all about memorial and memory, by making every part
of the final art work a form of memorial or remembrance I hope to get across to
the audience the actual idea, feeling and concept of the piece, rather than
having to explain it in depth when I present it.
Signatures: a person’s
signature is possibly the most personal and intimate things anyone has. No two
are alike and each one carries different meanings, responsibilities and power.
Signatures are the finger prints of the literary world and they are immediately
recognisable as an individual persons property. In fact in some countries if an
illiterate person is required to sign a document they may give their thumb
print in lieu. A signature can carry such wait and power, like a signature on a
declaration of war, or it could carry just a little like one of many on a
petition. Signatures are like our stamps; we stamp our personality on anything
we sign because a signature is the one aspect of any kind of writing that can
be truly our own. Some may be small and others may be large and sprawled across
the page with flamboyant swirls.
This is why I have chosen to have each piece of jewellery
personalised with someone’s signature. It is at once more personal and intimate
than any kind of hair sample or portrait. Yes it is even more personal than a
portrait because someone’s signature is proof that that particular person has
stool there, deliberated and placed there mark upon the page, without any
interference from another party.
More inspirational artists
Antonia Rossi has not inspired me in so many words, however
I have enjoyed looking at her artworks and her crochet necklaces have given me
many ideas for my project. I haven’t really used most of those ideas, however
it helps immeasurably to have artist who use techniques I am exploring
successfully, to look at and refer to. Rossi has her own style and way of doing
things, she carries her materials around with her often uses found and used
materials. This gives me inspiration in not only things to make and create but
also how to do it, its artists like Rossi that make you realise there are other
ways of making and finding ideas.
Much like my own work for this project, Rossi often
uses her artwork and necklaces as vessels or pouches in which notes or objects
can be placed ready to be found or read and then rediscovered all over again.
Anne Holman is another artist who has inspired me throughout
this project. Not because she uses making techniques that I do, but because her
art is very beautiful and because every piece of her jewellery is inspired,
contains or is made of something that has great significance to Holman. She
remakes antique jewellery and is constantly inspired by a hope chest that was
left to her by her grandparents. She is quoted saying; “I have always been a collector of objects and am fascinated by the
histories each holds” (quote from ‘the new artisans’ by Olivier Dupon,
2011). She has a series of necklaces that are simply vials of soil with a
section of antique map framed in metal as the stopper. Each has the
geographical co-ordinates of where the soil came from, stamped onto the metal
of the stopper. Each one of those necklaces is a memorial of that particular
place from whence the dirt originated, and in years to come others will look at
them and know their origins.
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