Posts Tagged ‘jewellery’
Garbage Pin Project by Ana Cardim
Just saw this amazing pin on milktoothrain.blogspot.com.
Features a tiny silver ‘bin pin’ with refill bin bags. Over the course of the day you place your rubbish into the little bag. When full, the bag can be removed and kept as a contemporary jewel, made from the detrius of everyday urban living.
I love what this implies about our disposable and throwaway society. Perhaps your bin bag would make a good keepsake, with its contents summing up deftly your life, society, or the interesting course of your day. Or perhaps it would display for all to see plain truths and darker aspects of the way we live that we usually keep hidden and would rather others did not see. It would be different for everybody, as the pin only truly fulfills its purpose through being used.
Clean Your Mind Pin
I also love this paper dispenser pin. It serves as a kind of cathartic process; you pull off a section of papaer, write down your troubles and then scrumple them up and flush them away down the toilet. What better way to put your worries from your mind?
I also like the tiny little refill rolls that come with it. There’s something cute about them. It’s astounding how even toilet paper can look cute if it’s made tiny.
I find that reducing the scale on almost anything instantly makes it more precious. This is a theme I explore in my own work. I remember art class in school seeing the work of Claus Oldenburg for the first time, and realising that changing the scale of something ordinary makes it extraordinary. It’s placing it out of context, and when you do that, you really notice it. You look at it as an object on its own. You realise things you did not realise when it was in normal size. It becomes more magical and special somehow. That’s why I am so fascinated with scale. I love how it can change your perception of everything.
“Artists use lies to tell the truth…” (Alan Moore).
I suppose you only have to look at the history of humankind, at how long we have been making miniature objects, carvings, replicas, as sacred talismans. Roman body part offerings, Micro Mosaics, Elizabethan miniature portraits, Faberge eggs, Japanese netsuke, Shrunken heads, Rosary beads, Crucifixes, Lockets and Reliquaries, Dolls houses. We have been making things in miniature almost since our very beginning.
It is this sacredness and precious quality that I try to tap into with my own work, as well as weaving in my own personal narrative. My work has roots in almost everything. That’s why I run this blog. I don’t want people to look at my work and only think, ‘Oh, that’s just about tea’, although of course you could see it that way if you wanted. It’s about so much more than that, if you look closely enough and read the clues presented in each piece of work. I like to think that someone could own a piece of jewellery I made, and for every year they own it, they could realise something new that it is saying. Not everything is instant. I like things that reveal with time.
Mmm… More cake
Posted on: June 12, 2009
Here’s some pictures of the delicious cupcakes me and my family scoffed at the Time for Tea exhibition at Model House. They were the marvellous creations of Bethan Watkins and let me assure you they weren’t around long for us to admire.
In fact we were extra greedy and bought some to take home as well.
Here’s a picture of the tea time spread…
I had a chocolate and coffee cupcake… it was scrumptious… the bit on top was a chocolate nugget with coffee beans inside…
And here’s my mother’s choice of cake… a lemon and blueberry cupcake.
Speaking of cupcakes, there were also some cute ceramic versions I saw at the show, by Linda Calvert (www.lindacalvert.co.uk/ceramics) and some amazingly delicate cups and saucers by Clare Gage (www.claregage.com).
I was also severely tempted by the ceramic milk cartons by Hanne Rysgaard Ceramics that come in a variety of vintage inspired patterns. By creating them in ceramic, she has transformed the ordinariness of a simple milk carton into something very precious and tactile. …I could just imagine one on my kitchen table, with a single flower poking from it. It would look simple but beautiful too. (www.hannerysgaard.com).
My favourite thing though, was a little biscuit holder by the ceramicist Hitomi McKensie. When I saw it I immediately wanted to pick it up and feel all the little ridges along the side; there was something so tactile and organic about it and it was obviously just perfect for biscuits. They rested in there like peas in a perfectly formed pod. I know it’s probably quite sad to be so entranced by a biscuit tray, but I couldn’t help but keep going back to it and looking at it! I’m trying to live in these credit crunch days by the idiom Less is More, and be only surrounded by objects that I absolutely love. Anything else is not worth buying, and I resolve to just save my pennies. But this is one of those objects.
Luckily, unbeknownst to me, my lovely boyfriend had noticed me staring at this biscuit holder like some utter loon, and sneaked off to buy it for me behind my back. I had it for my birthday a day later! How happy I was. The only problem now is I’m going to get very fat from leaving a load of biscuits out where I can see them… ‘but I have to eat them!’ I will say, ‘or they’ll go stale!’ Blame the biscuit holder! It’s a likely excuse I’m sure.
The exhibition is on at Model House, Llantrisant, until the 19th July, so if you’re in the area, I highly recommend you go take a look, there’s some wonderful stuff there.
Rachel Llewellyn 