Winter in Central Park

So I have finally been granted a visa and have made it to NYC. It has been the dream to come and join my partner who has been living in NYC since the end of 2009. I arrived on April 11, 2012.

There are three reasons for my excitement:

1. I no longer need to speak via Skype to my beloved

2. Changing the way I work within the industry

3. When I die, I don’t have to regret not ever living in this crazy/beautiful/amazing city

I have been looking to find a new way forward in the last few years of my work-life in Sydney. I have been looking for a new way forward with how I work. I’ve felt that after 20 years on the bench, designing, manufacturing and developing work, it has come time to develop on a much larger scale and work with teams of people, developing product that is manufactured by others. Although working for oneself has its merits, I’ve really felt the struggle to manufacture product as you think about it due to financial and time restraints.

NYC will open pathways to working as a designer. There exists opportunities here like no other city in the world. I believe that once you develop your brand through contacts, it will open up pathways worth exploring. I have been lucky enough to have met with some agencies who will put me forward for positions. This will open up dialogue between myself and the jewellery industry.

Watch this space, look out, here I come!

The brief: Design a set of jacks that were dolphin shaped, had a tactile quality, sophisticated form and resonated with the Moet Hennessy brand.

My personal brief – to make the dolphins steal appeal.

Designing a dolphin form and make it sophisticated was initially daunting. The form has been used over and over again and the high kitsch element has not gone unnoticed on me. The thought of designing an object that has such strong ties to ‘magic happens’ made the design process all the more challenging.

Initially the materials that were discussed was resin. I felt that this material for the dolphins had a lifespan and wouldn’t have a longevity required to capture the interest of an individual. I believed that if the materials took on a living quality they would hark back to ‘old school’ board games but also inspire people to collect them instead of throwing them to landfill. Wood was the answer! As time goes by, the wood will take on the oils from the hands and become darker, a living, breathing material that becomes more beautiful over time.

The samples were the deciding factor. I had variety of wood dolphins made as well as resin ones that were Pantone colour matched back to the  for Cloudy Bay logo. The wooden dolphins were a far superior product for all the warmth that the resin ones weren’t.

I worked with an international company who realised the final product, without them I would have been unable to manufacture the product in Australia. The benefit of me being a maker/designer was that I was able to send them the sample dolphin exactly as I saw the product. They were brilliant to work with, highly skilled and professional.  They used recycled material to manufacture the dolphins and they took great care to make the product exquisite.

Designing the dolphins so that the tactility made one want to touch, stroke and eventually steal made the pieces collectable and highly sought after.

Over the past few months I’ve been house sitting in all parts of Sydney. The best thing has been the dog walks. There have been some incredible parts of Sydney I’ve lived in and seen, insane views and been privy to some extraordinary details that if I wasn’t in the moment, would bypass them without even noticing.

Being available to nature’s wabi-sabi was amazing, a bag that was in a state of decay, a coke can being squashed into the asphalt. Both being given a second life if only we have time to notice, be inspired by and indulge the senses.

Wabi-Sabi – The Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all.

I guess the thing I love about these ‘tiny trappings’ is that try as we might, yet again nature humbles us. It’s impossible to translate what we see around us it into an object without making it look laboured, obvious and contrived.

One of my favourite artist Andy Goldworthy works his magic with wabi-Sabi, his honesty with the materials, his interpretation of the world and the documentary of his semi-permanent pieces as they are dissolving back into the earth are just inspiring and beautiful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 
I was developing the ‘Nest’ collection which was a whimsical, feminine range. The challenge was to make the piece masculine and yet reflective of this collection. My thinking process took a new direction and it was less about having a nest-like object and more of a single line that wrapped around the finger. The stones tapered in colour and moved from black to blue to white, adding another element to the ring. It’s bright rose gold appearance needed to be pared back so as to highlight that it was for a male rather than female. I started thinking of my drawing classes from design school and it was the single line drawings in pencil and black markers that influenced the direction.

Making the ring black rhodium was the key to emasculating the object.

A single black line drawn with black marker around the finger. I loved that it took on a very different feel and in it’s simplicity, pulled the brilliance of the stones back so everything breathed subtlety together.  In time, the black rhodium will wear and the ring will morph allowing the rose gold to show beneath the black, allowing the ring to change over time.

In an ideal world, this ring would have a companion. A flat wide band with stones that are grain-set all the way around the ring, the stone setting reflecting its partner’s single black line.

A new exhibition, Places & Spaces: the exhibition, opens today in Cudgegong Gallery. A group show of established and emerging artists who explore places they are connected with from around the world. Curated by the brilliant Zara Collins, I’ve been asked to be part of this show and of course said ‘yes’.

It was a difficult decision as to what to make, I started a few pieces that explored the idea of colony however ended up working on 3 pieces that were all inspired by the fluid movement of the ocean and seeing the coral beds that lie below the surface.  Made from Resin and Fine Silver, the inner sleeves were fused together then forged. The resin was poured as a block and cut back and polished as a response to the inner sleeve.

Growing up on the ocean, a place called Streaky Bay on ‘The Great Australian Bight’, I’ve a hugh affinity with the sea. This was the starting point of this work.

If you have time to see this show and are in the area, check it out.

Over the next few weeks, new work is being exhibited in an acquisitional show ‘Contemporary Wearables ’11′ in Toowoomba 10th September 2011. This competition happens once every two years and work is selected from Australia and New Zealand. I’m so thrilled that this piece has been selected to be in the finals. The piece is called Colony and is about the way communities of micro organisms work together to give you a the visual that we see. Much like a piece of coral. This work has been a development from ‘Caught in a Nest’ where you see it on not so much of a mass scale.

The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts