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We Don't Do Diamonds Emerging.Contemporary.Jewellers.Explore.Anniversarys Urban Cow Studio Gallery Until mid March  The
artists of this exhibition, as the title says, don't do diamonds.
They don't do chocolates, red roses or teddy bears either, and probably
a good thing in the aftermath of Valentine's Day. In addition to being
an exhibition by contemporary jewellers Amy Lewis, Ewa Card, Nicole
Ivanov and Anne Weckert (collaboratively), Patricia Wise, Katrina
Weber, Amy Magill and Meghann Jones, this is also the nemesis of soppiness
and empty symbols of lazy love. Some symbols of love though, such
as the ring or heart have been revamped and become meaningful again
- with some time, thought and emerging contemporary jewellers.With the feature wall, dated images to peruse (such as a seventies looking marriage insurance advertisement), and a world of marriage/ anniversary facts from www.ebridal.com, this is almost a museum of love (or cultural celebrations of love anyhow). Did you know that 'tying tin cans to the back of the car is good luck because the noise will frighten away bad spirits' or 'a week before the wedding, have a house cat eat of your left shoe for good luck'? Curator Katrina Weber has made this show an informative and interesting experience by bringing the origin of marital traditions and current wedding trends together: revealing lost truths and uncovering absent practices. It is also a meeting of an array of jewellery making practices, showing more traditional and contemporary ideas of jewellery at once, that is, the kind of jewellery that doesn't include diamonds. 'We Don't Do Diamonds' contemporises the anniversary gift materials of the first seven years of marriage. Each jeweller has taken on one of the following materials and anniversary years to centre their work around; paper (1st), cotton (2nd), leather (3rd), flowers (4th), wood (5th), candy (6th) and wool (7th). Many works using these seven materials are combined with other more traditional jewellery making materials, such as silver. Works that rely less heavily upon additional materials, such as Meghann Jones' delicate wool rings, made almost entirely of fibrous and fine twisted wool with only a hint of metal to hold place, stretch the idea of jewellery to its farthest limits and are most interesting. Patricia Wise's explorations of the fourth year anniversary material, flowers, are, like the rest of the exhibits, unique, diamond-free and cliche-free. Using floral wallpaper to form neckpieces and brooches, she makes poetic connections between the home and the body, bringing to mind the common phrase, 'home is where the heart is'. Wise's subtle and understated approach to 'flowers' implies the day-to-day sharing of life and home with a steady partner. No red roses in sight. Ewa Card has used the second year anniversary material, cotton, to make a series of pop-pom featuring pendants and a brooch. Amusing, as there probably is a cheerleading dance of encouragement needed to perpetuate many two-year relationships, these pieces are at once fun and well-made pieces of contemporary jewellery. This sense of fun is also seen in Amy Magill's candy-appearing necklaces, where modelling clay resembles balls of boiled candy strung together. Some of Katrina Weber's rings incorporating wood can be worn on one or several fingers, perhaps interlocking a couple, should the need arise. These are highly crafted and slick rings that recall contemporary furniture and dˇcor items with their grainy wood and moveable parts. Anne Weckert and Nicole Ivanov, with leather, use the heavily laden symbol of the heart, but in a contemporised form. Not unlike the little heart shaped lollies stamped with tiny love messages, these leather hearts, made into pendants, bracelets and brooches have individual sewn messages for the recipient. Old and new phrases are twisted, so you won't find your usual 'you are my (insert sickly word here)' type messages, but some unique and honest phrases suitable for the more typical relationship. Here you could find the kind of gift that says the brutal truth; 'I only want to be in the same room as you when you are in a good mood', or 'it's your turn to do the dishes'. Well, not quite, but some of them come close. You can definitely find 'bounty hunter', 'love cat' and '1627 times wishing you hadn't said that'. Using paper printed with French, Arabic, Chinese and English text, Amy Lewis' has formed delicate earrings, some made with the paper itself and some taking on the shape from the moulded texts. The celebration of love is universal, but things are done differently in each culture, as we can see in the following useful fact: 'in Denmark, brides and grooms traditionally crossed dressed to confuse evil spirits'. Here is another interesting fact: 'The veil is to disguise the bride from evil spirits'. It is interesting how traditions carry on into the future despite losing their original symbolism. The veil, in contemporary terms is more associated with the words every groom is waiting to hear, 'you may kiss the bride', rather that as a shield from evil spirits. Although love transcends time and cultures, traditions morph, and so do our symbols of love. 'We Don't Do Diamonds', while a take on contemporary culture's expression of anniversary, is also a statement about contemporary jewellery - you don't have to work with diamonds to be a contemporary jeweller.  |
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