Masterworks – Chain Show
BDVA – Photography
These past two years whilst being a mentee of Handshake, I have been completing a BDVA in photography. I am happy to announce that I have finished my degree.
Here I share insights from the past three years of being a student of photography…
Introduction
Before I began my studies in photography I was a student of contemporary jewellery craft and design for four years. The awareness of the relationship between jewellery and photography and the importance in the jewels first appearance to the viewer is what led me to further my education in photography. Compared to the image, the Jewellery as object is rarely seen. It is the jewellery as an image that is coveted rather than the jewel itself. I wanted to explore the elements of photography and its techniques, to better understand its relationship to jewellery. Photography has helped expand my engagement as a maker of images and as a maker of objects.
My Practice
Both of my practices have been predominantly focused on women, creating narratives and communicating feminist ideals through fictional characters, about egos and identity. I like to invest in humour, frequently employing elements of play within my making. I am interested in the process of construction, preferring the hands on physicality of creating, often discovering the limitations of materials through production. Imagery is important in my practice, both created and appropriated images are commonly shared through a varied series of works. My work relates to the self, self-portrait and self-reflection. I see the body as an object, where explorations and discoveries can take shape as a form of art.
Final Years Work
This year I developed an interest in using the camera as a tool and the photograph as a material for a wider scale of making. This has pushed me towards a broader understanding of where the boundaries of photography lie. Black and Gold has enabled my knowledge of installation to grow. I see further explorations of additional installations to follow in the future.
Black and Gold
Black and Gold incorporates the appropriation of images from high end fashion magazines to examine commodity fetishism and its relationship towards women.
It was a theory carried from Freud that only in shopping can women exhibit fetishist tendencies due to their ‘lack’ of. This theory supports the growing popularity of consumerism being targeted towards women and the sexualizing of an object in place of a human partner. The gratification of object over human being has risen with the growth of consumerism and the production of popular images through mass media outlets from magazines to television. Women have been moulded into perfect consumerists by man and have become the primary focus of product advertising. Women are still being left out as individuals, seeking their role models on screen and in the glossy pages of magazines. This was a concept created by man so that the culture could be kept male.
The installation Black and Gold centres around three appropriated Versace fashion models. These freestanding two-dimensional beauties come with a custom created habitat one could only hope to find in the pages of a woman’s magazine. The high cultured stylizing of the Versace trio is in contrast to the wooden framed panels of the room, focusing on the thinly veiled illusions created from the growing wealth of glossy magazines, which leave the viewer forever reaching for the unattainable dream.
The Pah Homestead
Work in the making… Girl Guide Badges
Insignia patches have identifiable imagery of individual tasks and are awarded to those on completion of each task achieved. While these patches are a way of showing achievement and rank amongst the bearers, I believe they also create separation to those who did not fill the requirements.
Girl Guide Badges are based on the insignia patches worn by scouts. Each Girl Guide badge has imagery of the rose from Mills and Boon, suggesting that these books, much like the scout survival guides targeted for boys, are a guide for the survival of girls, to aid in their endeavours of becoming a woman and finding a suitor.
Avid Gallery
“There is no need to define yourself every time, let the work tell your story, whatever it is…”
– Ela Bauer
Beset:
verb (used with object), beset, besetting
- to attack on all sides; assail; harass
- to have trouble on an ongoing basis
- to decorate or encrust with jewels
Skype #2 – In Conversation with Ela
The last time we spoke you showed me photographs of very beautifully embroidered images… Are you still continuing with this?
I am! I am really enjoying it! I love what I am making and see a future with it. I never felt that way about work I made before…
WOW!
- Play with the idea of what a pillow is
- The pillow would connect well with the body – Maybe try this?
- The emblem of the rose – What does this mean?
- I like the idea of these being flat – Like dried flowers in books
- Associations
- This may be a nice continuation on from the pillows
- Connection to the brand
- Connection to the flower
- The books – “soft feelings” – pillows
- Connect the two – make something BIG!
- A great lead, what you have – continue!
- Write a list of associations you make to hard/soft – large/small
- Do not take for granted scale
- Form – You take the square as a given, this does not have to be – think about it
- The object needs to relate to something – body/wall/table
- Investigate where you want your object to go
- Take a photograph of all the work you have done in the time we have had together
I really like that you went on with it, you know?
I know I say this with everything I make, but I am really excited about them and by them. They fascinate me and they are so much fun to make, I am enjoying it! My mind is going crazy, there is so much I can do with them. It is exciting to think that I can extend on something and there is so much there to extend on. I have never really had that feeling about a lot of the jewellery I have made before.
Fantastic!
Take a photograph of all the work you have done in the time we have had together, without highlighting any of them. It would be great to see your materials and how you got to this because it looks again as if it is something new but, you are really searching the whole time, you are searching for something which has in its form also the content somehow embedded, that you can carry on with. I think now it has come together.
Stanley Street Gallery
Pillow Talk
“You’re so lovely,” Kyle whispered raggedly. “So slender and graceful, so cool and elusive…” His hand was caressing her hip, the saintly skin of her thigh. “From the moment I saw you, I’ve been burning for you. And I know you feel the same way, too.”
“You don’t know anything of the kind,” Sophie retorted. But she had to speak between his kisses, and the blood was rushing in her veins, like molten gold being poured into a new mould, a new shape.
Duel of Passion – Madeleine Kerr
The front covers of Mills and Boon books display kitsch images of how romance between man and woman should look. In true style to escapist fiction for women, the cover’s imagery often depicts the male figure in a state of obsession over the woman while she gazes beyond the frame, aware of her sexual power over him. The look of these book covers is central to the consistency of the brand name, ensuring that each volume conforms to the expectation of the reader.
The series Pillow Talk came about after my make-believe conversations with a reader of Mills and Boon. I imagined a familiar woman reading the sweet whispers of Mills and Boon before bed time as a way to fill the void due to the lack of romantic pleasure caused by the clueless husband who stumbles to bed, farts, rolls over and spends a sleep-filled night snoring and drooling into his pillow.
“A man attaches himself to woman — not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself. ”
Simone de Beauvoir – The Second Sex
Working on…
The fascination of Mills and Boon…
Girl Guide Badges
Pillow Talk
These pillows will be in Handshake’s next exhibition held at Stanley Street in Sydney Australia.
Skype #1 – In Conversation with Ela
Hi Tineke,
How are you?? How’s work?
Anyway, I just received mail from Peter Deckers about the upcoming exhibitions and projects… Wow what great opportunities!
Tineke, I am so curious what are you doing these days and I would love us to Skype so we can discuss some of your latest projects, and also your works so far. Shall we do that?
Which day and hour suits you? We have a time difference of course, but let’s try to work out something.
Skype! I have been avoiding this for sometime… Skype makes me nervous… how ridiculous I can be… To be greeted by Ela and for her to share her latest work with me and for me to share mine is why I wanted to become a part of Handshake. It may have taken me a while to get out of my own way, but I am here now!
Again the issue is raised, my disjointed making – Settle!
Put the work you have made on the table, spread them out and look at them. You may be surprised by the connections you make. – Try to find yourself in the things you have made. Photograph them on yourself and become that person they are for.
We speak of my studying photography and my unease of last year in splitting myself between the two practices – always in limbo with one another – my work was made last year as a way to try and force the two together…
See it as a process, a connection – combine both – accept both – you may find you do not need to split your time – you can do a lot with both – Profit!
Take more time in the process – question yourself more – find an answer
There is enough jewellery in the world – you need a reason – if you are convincing in the work, they don’t need an answer – there is no doubt
How will I get some sort of message from the work – give it a reason to be there – fine tune
Repetition of a process
Take more time in what you choose – why this scale – why this material
Photographs – place them on a male – create contradictions
How to make elements stronger
Remove the doubt and give yourself more choice – why this scale, why that material..?
Ask yourself WHY? – Will make the elements stronger
Ela – Makes through forms that mean something to her and explores that connection
Skype in two weeks – full table with work, surround yourself and make connections
Mills & Boon
Suddenly racked by embarrassment at her nudity under the sheet, she said uncertainly, ‘Paul?’
Robyn Donald – A Forbidden Desire
I have developed a fascination for Mills and Boon. Not the stories themselves but what these romance novels represent. The women in these stories, the women that write these stories and the women that read these stories. Why?
My Nana kept a collection of Mills and Boon in her spare room. They sat on a side table, on lace, next to an ornate vase full of dusty plastic flowers and beside a faux Tiffany styled lamp. This display painted the perfect picture in my minds eye of what these romance filled novels represented. It was an image that stayed. I ended up taking these novels home (to the horror of my Nana) and spent a considerable amount of time inspecting these kitsch romance stories.
I began experimenting with Mills and Boon during an elective I took at the start of the year in print-making. These books have since played a strong role in my latest research of my most recent series of work.
Fan Girl: Research
It is about time I shared more of my passions and interests, things that have led/or should lead to further research and future developments of who I am and why I make… Lets have some fun with it… I dedicate this chapter to the Fan Girl!
Here are a few things that have piqued my interest this year.
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
The women of Stepford are not all that they seem
Beneath the town’s flawless surface, something is sordid and wrong – something abominable, with its roots in the local Mens’ Association. And it may already be too late for Joanna to save herself from being devoured by Stepford’s hideous perfection.
Chuck Palahniuk – Introduction
These glazed, pretty dolls, actually robots, would be subservient to men. That became the enduring metaphor: The Stepford Wives. Stepford Wife. Even as the pretty, former fashion model Martha Stewart smiled and polished silver, validating the role of Domestic Goddess to a new generation, the taint was always there… A Stepford Wife looked so calm and organized, so lovely and buxom, but she wasn’t really alive.
Erwin Olaf
Silence pervades his images like a soft afternoon light, and his subjects never relate to one another, captured instead during quiet, private moments—but their gestures and postures speak volumes. His subjects are always pictures of perfection, their hair coiffed just so, makeup applied impeccably. They wear figure-constricting dresses and nicely tailored suits, and they have perfect homes to match. But in the static stillness and sterility of their environments, volcanoes of repressed emotion—desire, grief, regret—seem poised to erupt. Rather than confronting viewers, their gazes are often downcast or averted, heightening the dramatic power. They turn away from the camera or stare listlessly at the wall, conveying the raw experiences that overwhelm us all in the moments when no one is looking.
Revolutionary Road
A dark story of Suburbia angst set in 1955. It is a story full of raw emotion, at times, difficult to watch. Revolutionary Road is wonderfully written and well-acted with unforgettable scenes and stylizations throughout. I am currently reading the novel…
Roy Lichtenstein
Thinking of Him, 1963
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I am so in love with this novel. I also love the movie in all its imagery and stylizations of the era.
“I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – (Daisy)
“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” – (Nick)
I love movie posters from the Film Noir period The Killers – a classic and boy that Burt Lancaster sure was a hottie
Much like the Film Noir period – La Femme Fatale feature strongly in 90’s movie genre – another film period I am quite taken with – Sharon Stone comes to mind, one of the ultimate femme fatales of the 90s – Check out the trailer…
I am somewhat obsessed with the 1950’s Housewife! How perfect they seem on the surface.
I am currently reading The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and I have The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir lined up – The Housewife, the Femme Fatale I am fascinated by these generalizations made of females. I want to explore this further.
“What would Prince Charming have for occupation if he had not to awaken the Sleeping beauty?”
– Simone de Beauvoir
Invest – Ela Bauer
There is no need to define yourself every time, let the work tell your story, whatever it is.
It’s great that you make so many discoveries, that is a great richness, but at the same time I think that it would be great if you stuck a bit longer to something you made / discovered. Why won’t you hold on a little bit longer to some work you make and see what more you can discover? Or combine your materials with some unexpected ones? Or treat them differently than usual? I know that you do all those things, but to get deeper into something you really have to give things some time. Invest much more time into the process.
“What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one? Perhaps that you’re searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don’t find the time for finding?”
– Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Wow has it been that long!?
It is now April, the months have flow and I have neglected to share.
When I last visited I spoke of self-reflection and my anxieties surrounding a public mentorship. By the look of it, after I wrote this, I hid. I have ignored my previous statement and have still not shared – Naughty me. Get ready, there may be an influx of posts on the way…
Master class: February 7-11th
Chapter five: Happy New Year!.. Now What!…
Since beginning Handshake I have found myself second guessing my actions, the imagined microscope I find myself under with this public mentorship has been causing performance anxiety. The start of my blog I speak of a new found material love. What happened to that? Where did the love go? Self-Doubt! she hid it from me. She crept in through the white spaces in-between the black lines. Damn her! I thought I was finished with her.
Time to fess up. I am easily swayed. I listen too often to the noise of others, I stay away from conversations involving myself and my work because of this. I am secretive. I don’t like to share. Sharing, handshake is all about sharing and because of this I have found it difficult to begin a project and see it through – Self-Doubt is noisy. I have since discovered that this was the reason I wanted to be a part of Handshake, to learn to speak of my work and share. Admitting this to myself and publicly has helped work out my worries and self-doubt I am feeling refreshed and ready to own it.
This year I am working towards consistency and certainty in my work, I know who I am and I know what I like. It is time to find strength and ownership in this.
Last year this Quality would not leave me alone.
Anxiety
Anxiety is secretive. He does not trust anyone, not even his friends, Worry, Terror, Doubt, and Panic. He has a way of glombing onto your skin like smog, and then you feel unclean. He likes to visit me late at night when I am alone and exhausted. I have never slept with him, but he kissed me on the forehead once, and I had a headache for two years. He sure is a nuisance to get out of the house. He has no respect for locks or curtains or doors. I speak from experience. It takes cunning to get rid of him, a combination of anger, humour, and self-respect. A bath helps too. He does not like to get wet. As a last resort, if you are not near a bathtub, wet your face with tears.
The Book of Qualities – J.Ruth Gendler
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx HAPPY NEW YEAR xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chapter four: Toi Poneke Exhibition
Interpretation is an interesting thing, how often we translate the meaning of words differently…
Ideas are collections that formulate and create before they reach my hands. Often the idea changes through the tactility of the material and the material changes through the idea. Admitting a process to another and sharing the beginning stages of an idea is a hard thing to do.
As a mentee of Handshake discussions with a mentor are vital, sharing with an audience is encouraged. Sorting through the cobwebs of processes that sit in my head and making this coherent for another has become a challenge. During this process of sharing with a mentor I find my mind has become that of a person with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder controlling the remote, constantly interfering with my daily viewing. I share with Ela many ideas and experimentations with various materials. By the time she emails back I have shifted onto the next thing. Ela has been very calm with my process of change. Her best piece of advice to settle my nerves was “don’t panic, better to have one good thing, or many try outs, than finished jewels that don’t mean much to you.”
Ideas are easy. It is refining an idea and sharing with another that is the challenge. One thought that brings me comfort is to know my work is mine and in any condition they will always be mine no matter how often an idea or material changes.
Chapter three: IDEA, I dare, oh dear!… In conversation with Ela
The first exhibition for the Handshake mentees is coming up. This is a perfect time to change a process, begin an exploration of confusion, change ideas mid-stream, use a new material and change said material for another. Then email mentor one work in progress and before she has time to respond, change it for another.
Ideas are easy. It is refining an idea and sharing with another that is the challenge.
Idea… Celebrities and jewellery.
I was actually really glad to get your former mail with the collages and with your enthusiasm to think of a spoken thought – jewel. Did you go any further in this direction? I thought your collages were a great beginning of a process because they embodied thought over body and over adornment and preciousness without being very concrete.
Thank you for your feedback with the collage images, I was a bit unsure of them and regrettably discarded them rather quickly, I have not given much thought since I sent them to you and now after reading your email again I regret not sticking with it longer.
Idea… Erasers
I began taking still life images of erasers found in the two dollar shops across Auckland. Without a clear idea at the start as to why I was doing this a slight fetishism took over me and I became lost in the documenting and grouping of these small objects of such tactile quality. It was then I began looking at Pop Art and responding to the relationship of the object as a popular product manufactured, being sold to young school kids and others like myself who get carried away in the sheer cuteness of such a well-made yet completely useless product.
I have also begun making jewellery from erasers but not from the kind that I photographed, purely because to start with I did not want it to look like the object I photographed.
As to your work, it’s a bit of a shame you didn’t go on with the collage jewels but I believe there will come a time when you will come back to it. On the other hand you did dive into the erasers!! I think that the way you find out and construct patterns is great!! I have my favourites, I love the long necklace (the one on the torso), and I love the way the colours mingle in the ironed bracelet and ring. There are also pieces that remind me of Sol Levitt (one of my favourite artists) especially one piece, with yellow, violet and red-orange. Actually many of the pieces you made are really fascinating!!
The immediate problem with these eraser pieces is the fragility of the material, once ironed and shaped they become brittle and disintegrate upon wearing. Maybe that is the beauty of it, the short life span. I like my pieces to be long lasting. These are exploration pieces far from being a final jewel.
Idea… Up-cycled book
What I next began to explore were up-cycling books. Using old books and giving them a new context. While researching this idea I found an old book of my uncles. Peter Pan. I re-read it to refresh my memory and seek out my child-self for inspiration. I was soon to discover how different the characters of the book were to those I remember from childhood. Peter, as it turns out (from an adult perspective) is a bit of a shit and how sorry I felt for Mr and Mrs Darling whose naughty children left them in a panic. – Interpretation is an interesting thing, how often we translate the meaning of words differently…
As to the book work… Beautiful! I love the idea very much and what I saw is interesting. I’d love to see how your book has changed!
In a book I recently read, A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes I was interested to see that some aspects of love could be related to the love of an object and its maker.
“I am crazy”
fou / mad
It frequently occurs to the amorous subject that he is or is going mad.
… Werther meets a madman in the mountains: in midwinter, he wants to pick flowers for Charlotte, whom he has loved. This man, during the time he was in a padded cell, was happy: he no longer knew anything about himself. Werther half recognizes himself in the madman seeking flowers: mad with passion, like himself, but deprived of any access to the (supposed) happiness of unconsciousness: he suffers from having failed his own madness.
… a Zen story: An old monk busies himself in the hottest weather drying mushrooms. “Why don’t you let others do that?” “Another man is not myself, and I am not another. Another cannot experience my action. I must create my experience of drying mushrooms.”
The Unknowable
inconnaissable / unknowable
… I am caught in this contradiction: on one hand, I believe I know the other better than anyone and triumphantly assert my knowledge to the other and on the other hand, I am often struck by the obvious fact that the other is impenetrable, intractable, not to be found; I cannot open up the other, trace back the other’s origins, solve the riddle. Where does the other come from? Who is the other? I wear myself out, I shall never know.
The Ribbon
objets / objects
Every object touched by the loved being’s body becomes part of that body, and the subject eagerly attaches himself to it.
… gestures of fetishism: he kisses the knot of ribbon Charlotte has given him.
The Last Leaf
magie / magic
Magic consultations, secret rites, and votive actions are not absent from the amorous subject’s life, whatever culture he belongs to.
“… here and there, on the trees, some leaves remain. And I often stand deep in thought before them. I contemplate a leaf and attach my hope to it. When the wind plays with the leaf, I tremble in every limb. And if it should fall, alas my hope falls with it.”
… sometimes the anxiety is so powerful and so pressing – an anxiety of waiting, for instance – that it becomes necessary to do something. This “something” is naturally a vow.
The first time he lit a candle in a little Italian church. He was surprised by the flame’s beauty, and the action seemed less absurd. Why henceforth deprive himself of the pleasure of creating a light?
The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler is a sweet whimsical meta-definition of Qualities you find in yourself and others. I often search through the Qualities for an answer to a personality I have meet or am becoming.
Criticism
Criticism was always the shortest kid in the class. He learned early to use words to defend himself. As a teenager, Criticism loved to take things apart. At that time he didn’t care if they ever got put back together. He retains a strong curiosity about how things work and a deep respect for tools. Criticism is a strict father. He fears their spontaneity.
Sometimes I want to write Criticism a letter and tell him to leave me alone. The problem is that when I don’t see him for a while, I start to miss him. Still, my conversations with him often make me nervous. I usually believe the bad things he says and forget about the good stuff. When we really disagree, I am upset for days and run around asking everyone I meet to reassure me. If I could trust him more, it would be different, but he changes his mind as much as I do. For all his sensitivity, it was years before he realised that other people also have feelings.
When Criticism looks at a painting, he sees the finished picture framed on the wall, and at the same time he sees the picture as it was being painted – what was drawn first, what went in last, where the artist hesitated, where the artist smiled. After Criticism lost his glasses, he discovered that he did not need them anymore. His focus is less acute, but he can see the whole picture better. The colours are more distinct when the outlines are blurred.
You can count on Criticism to have an opinion about everything. He is exceptionally well-read and usually knows what he is talking about. I don’t recommend that you speak to him when your project is in the beginning stages. However, as it approaches completion, he can be quite helpful. He is not interested in measuring what you or I do in relationship to each other or anyone else in our fields. At his best, he surveys the distance between our intentions and our accomplishments, between what we are and what we could be.
The book of Qualities – J. Ruth Gendler
Chapter two: RE: exhibition – In conversation with Ela Bauer
Regarding Chapter one: I enjoyed seeing all the images of your work! the minimalism of working on actually one form, the circle, and altering the scale appeals to me, it is of course very much dictated by the material you used. In this way, the material you use now is similar to the rubber, they both dictate forms, and in both cases you follow the “lead” of the material; the rubber is round and dictates round forms, the mesh has a ‘square’ pattern, and dictates square forms. right?. I think that it would be interesting disturbing this expectation! I see that you have an exhibition on in July, try approaching the material in a different way, it may make it possible for you to come up with some unexpected forms!
Yes you are right, the material I use dictates the form and I tend to follow the material. Breaking away from the materials obvious route and disturbing the expectation is something that I think would be really important for me to explore. To break away from the normal traditions of how I make and open up to change.
The result…
How to look at the world (like an artist)…
Every artist gets asked the question,
Where do you get your ideas?”
The honest answers,
“I steal them.”
How does an artist look at the world?
First, you figure out what’s worth stealing, then you move on to the next thing. That’s all there is to it. When you look at the world this way, you stop worrying about what’s ‘good’ and what’s ‘bad’ – there is only stuff worth stealing, and stuff that’s not worth stealing. Everything is up for grabs. If you don’t find something worth stealing today, you might fine it worth stealing tomorrow or a month or a year from now.
Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon
This video is a surprisingly comforting and humorous view on how wrong we all are – It makes being wrong so much easier to live with!
Chapter one: Materials and I – In conversation with Ela Bauer
Materials are the foundation of my practice. It is firstly the material that challenges me. It causes me to question why this material chose me and what I can do to reconstruct it. My conceptual approaches come from the language of this new found material. My recent material find is an obnoxiously shiny material rightly named Diamond Mesh. It caught me with its hypnosis and somewhat ghastly glare and gave me a challenge, “make me beautiful”. The question I asked myself was how do I use a shiny material with its many references to ‘bling’ in traditional and costume jewellery and bring it into a contemporary style, while keeping the shine but taking away its hypnosis. This diamond mesh and I have fought daily. It constantly blinds my thoughts through its dazzling gaze. How do I make something interesting from such imposing shine?
I recognize lots of similarities between our ways of working, one of which is that often a material triggers a process of thought and action, for example. In your first paragraph you wrote that the material causes you to question why it has chosen you and what you can do to reconstruct it. It seems that you have a funny relationship to it, it’s an attraction that you feel a bit strange with.. isn’t it?.. This diamond mesh seems to be that kind of material that can bring you to unexpected places! Are you working exclusively with the mesh at the moment or do you also have other materials?
This material is very new to me, I have come from using rubber based materials to this flat shiny material so at the moment, yes, it is a funny relationship we are having.
What do you do when you feel you have exhausted a much loved material? I was interested in knowing your thoughts on the matter, you have used the same material properties in your work for years and it is always new and exciting. For me I was just beginning to find a voice with my rubber work then I guess you could call it writers block, I just couldn’t work with it any longer, during that time I came across diamond mesh and I was excited to work with this new material. I wonder if I should have stayed with rubber a little longer…
“What do you do when you feel you have exhausted a much loved material?” I do just the same as you, I leave the material for a while. But, I think that mostly I have the feeling that there is still so much that can be done with a material, so many aspects that I still have not touched. In a way I am never done, not with the materials I have worked with so far, new ones add themselves to the old ones… but.. sometimes you get sort of sick and tired from your own stories and you want something completely different, and I suppose that that’s where you are now..?
There is something in this material that I love, so I am sticking to it… I went out and bought more of this material in all the colours it came with and explored more with the things that are me – Simplistic forms and motifs, repetition, scale and how my work sits on the body.
I love the form of this bracelet. The material is kind of fabulous, it holds its form so well and when squished, it bounces back. The material is soft and light in weight and the reaction from other people to the material has been pleasantly surprising… So I made more like this bracelet in the different coloured material, to see if it reads differently.
I have been having a good time with my material this past week, my new work in terms of form and aesthetics is starting to feel like my old work – It is becoming an exciting experience to know that the change of the material does not determine the change in my aesthetics, my voice is still there in the work and I am excited to see where this material will lead me. Also what you said about new materials adding on to the main material – I can’t wait until the time is right when I will introduce my material to a new one.
Inspiration
Inspiration is disturbing. She does not believe in guarantees or insurance or strict schedules. She is not interested in how well you write your grant proposal or what you do for a living or why you are too busy to see her. She will be there when you need her but you have to take it on trust. Surrender. She knows when you need her better than you do.
The Book of Qualities – J.Ruth Gendler
Nothing is original.The writer Jonathan Lethem has said that when people call something “original,” nine out of ten times they just don’t know the references or the original sources involved.
What good artists understand is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.
It is right there in the bible: “there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Some people find this idea depressing, but it fills me with hope. As the French writer Andre Gide put it, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
If we’re free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.
Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon
handshake2.com 
Very interesting. I am learning from your blog, thanks.
Thanks Hilda, so am I…