My Future Self Is Winning!

The mill space in this image may not look like a lot, but it's my future home. Creative home, that is... Sometime in the next couple of months (after some cleaning and clearing) this will be my new studio space! I'm excited to be sharing 3,000sq feet with some really talented friends, in a huge space that will be drastically closer to where I live. The building used to be the site of the Eastern Butcher Block Company, is environmentally clean and abuts a river. Sounds like paradise to me! I can't wait to see how it looks after its prepped for us to move in!

For the sake of Opulence...

I am flattered to have recently been asked by The Opulent Project to participate in one of their ongoing projects, COSTUME COSTUME. As a result, I've been working on making lots of the Pro Nailz pieces the past couple of weeks. As you can tell from the image to the right, I've logged many hours painting nails while watching hours of terrible movies. I can barely tell the difference between my living room and a professional nail salon at this point.

The exhibition that I've been making the work for, COSTUME COSTUME, investigates the nature and subject of costume jewelry... Costume jewelry has been traditionally viewed as a mass produced, low price point, fashionable yet disposable variety of jewelry. According to The Opulent Project, 'the original intention of costume jewelry is not to become collectibles or heirlooms but to be fashionable and dispensable when the trend passes. Frequently this jewelry is a mimicry of existing unattainable luxury jewelry or simply of a notion of traditional jewelry.'

The goal of COSTUME COSTUME is to present the limited edition works of designers who have tweaked the identity of costume jewelry to address the conceptual issues associated with this genre of jewelry. The pieces that are represented in this show challenge concepts of value, material, historicism, and identity. 'By replication and alteration we seek to further remove the simulated jewelry from its origin, thus costuming the costumed.... COSTUME COSTUME.'

I shipped the work that I'm contributing to COSTUME COSTUME out this morning to the ladies of The Opulent Project. It all fit into a small sized USPS priority rate box, which is always nice because the shipping rates are tolerable but also discouraging because it seems like so much artwork and labor should take up more physical space.

Check it out: COSTUME COSTUME will be exhibited with Sienna Gallery at SOFA NY in April 2011, and will then travel to the Heidi Lowe Gallery in August.

New Traditional Jewellery: True Colours

Though I don't think that I'll be able to make this exhibition, I wanted to share the information for this years New Traditional Jewellery showcase. The show is a biannual show which is hosted at the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem in the Netherlands. This years theme is True Colours, which is more than welcome as we exit the drab season of winter and begin to look for the colorful signs of spring.

Some of my favorites are pictured here:
The top image is a necklace by Tamara Gruner. I appreciate her monochromatic palate, and how the uniformity of the composition transforms the recycled materials into decorative objects that seem much more opulent than they are. The middle image is a necklace titled Show Me Colours 2010, by Denise Julia Reytan, and again features a composition of repurposed materials. The hyper saturation of the colors create a vibrancy that just makes my mouth water! Finally, the bottom image of the multi‐coloured Urban Tribal Necklace of Amanda Caines uses rejected telephone and computer wires made of plastic in bright colors, winding wool around them, fastens vintage fabrics to them and subsequently decorates them with beads.

Gah, I cannot wait for the catologue for this exhibition to come out!
Here is the mission statement for the show:

New Traditional Jewellery is a bi-annual international design competition in the field of contemporary jewellery. Historical or ethnographical carriers of meaning are taken as an incentive to generate new forms. In addition to this general framework there is also a specific theme. After traditional costume, faith and intimacy, this year’s theme is ‘True Colours’. Literally this refers to colour, for example in relation to materials and pigments. Throughout the ages colours and materials, such as gold and silver, often determined the meaning and value of pieces of jewellery. In the 1970’s and ‘80s other materials, such as textiles and Perspex, were also used.

As a result there emerged a new ‘language of colours’. This was an important step in the emancipation of contemporary jewellery. Therefore, ‘True Colours’ is about the history, meaning, value, magic and power of colour. Figuratively speaking, ‘True Colours’ could also mean “showing your true colours” or ‘to unveil your true self’. In this sense the theme could be approached from a social point of view, in which today’s multicoloured society is the main focus of attention. Colour contains information about status and social position. Colour can shout, curse, emancipate, help, judge and segregate.

Colours is a statement.

Solder Central

I've got my work cut out for me today...