Everyday Luxury

I decided to delve a little deeper into my idea of transforming elements of everyday objects into luxury items, exploring notions of luxury and the vast variety of qualities that make an object feel luxurious. A happy coincidence that the latest issue of Crafts magazine is titled ‘The Luxury Edition’, and has a series of reviews and responses to the current V&A and Crafts Council exhibition, ‘What Is Luxury?’ The exhibition invites you to contemplate what your personal view is on the subject, and encourages discussion of opinions on what constructs luxury.

Creative Programmes Director of the Crafts Council, Annie Waburton writes about crafts contribution to luxury. It is becoming increasingly attractive to say something is hand made; major corporate companies of all kinds, try to promote their product to fit within the craft arena. Even Kettle Chips are getting on the bandwagon (click the links below) a craft revolution appears to be in our midst...

http://www.kettlefoods.co.uk/about-us/our-story-so-far/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXGGg7t0q8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGLL1NJ6OIY

‘What Is Luxury?’ investigates how value is created through social, political and economic environments and networks, under what circumstances it is appreciated and importantly, how it may be altered. It acknowledges cultural trends, and reveals matters of taste and status. It displays examples of luxury objects due to the material they are made from, how they are made, where and when they were made, who they were made by and the manor in which they participate in our lives.

Gangjian Cui, The Rise of The Plasticsmith 

Dominic Wilcox, Luxury Skimming Stone

Nora Fok, Bubble Bath

 “Craft, the beautiful and useful, standing in the face of all this useless beauty”

For me, the motivating word in this quote is useful, and this optimises where I am currently located in my own practice research. The idea of usefulness being seen as a valuable service; like I have said before, I find great pleasure in an object that is useful, and that joyful feeling has to collate to luxury.

The Oxford dictionary defines luxury in 3 ways -

·      A state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense

·      An inessential, desirable item, which is expensive or difficult to obtain

·      A pleasure obtained only rarely

A luxury object should bring the owner feelings of satisfaction, of indulgence, fulfilment and happiness. I want share the gratification I get from everyday objects, by taking visual inspiration from them, transforming them into jewellery; a vehicle much more conventionally associated with luxuriousness.

Acknowledging trends and how trends are formed relies heavily on innovation in the design industry. Brand new materials could be seen as valuable and appealing to people in search of acquiring something magnificent and impressive. In my own work I have started to use bright, neon colours to draw attention and create a feeling of celebration. I had a conversation with my tutor about how neon is becoming progressively popular in all areas of design; coincidently Crafts magazine have themed the whole ‘Luxury Issue’ simply in black and white with pops of neon orange, a specific type of colour that has only been made possible by new, innovative technologies and materials.

Talking about materials, Annie Warburton mentions in her review of the exhibition how the use of inexpensive, common materials by skilled, pioneering makers can boost a final objects appearance of luxury, in the fact that it is a unexpected, unheard of and one of a kind expertise. Brass is a perverse material, it has a very low melting point, yet it is stubborn as hell, if you can make something in brass, you can make it in gold. Could a materials physical qualities and willingness (in brass’s case unwillingness) to be manipulated effect the luxury of the final outcome? If the maker has had to ‘have an argument’ with the material, to coax it into shape, can this time and persistence be acknowledged, and add value to the finished piece?

In short, I think I have found an area that I am incredibly intrigued and excited about to explore. I think this is a timely shift in my practice, it is a subject I am finding flows much more easily for me in terms of quality research, and I think it is an area that hasn’t really been discovered in the same manor in the context of jewellery.

SO...

Now I am more focused and confident in the direction I am heading in, I am going to research and source different materials to use to that reflect my ideas of transforming mundane objects into joyous, luxurious jewellery. I am going to create more material responses to my collection of objects; I want to have so many that I can fill several tables with them, however I do not want to describe these as samples anymore, they are 3D drawings, and I want them to appear considered and purposeful - only having a raw edge if I want a raw edge. The manor in which I create these 3D drawings will reflect the refinement and quality I am trying to portray in my pieces. The materials I use will become increasingly important, to allow me to echo qualities from the everyday objects and depict the indication of innovation and quality. I am going to discover new, materials and processes that I can experiment with now (plasti-dip for colour, fine gauze and industrial metals) but also that I could potentially look to use in the future (hydraulic press, gold plating). And Finally, I am now going to research pioneering jewellers and craftspeople to help me locate my practice in the professional world...roll on practice 3!

It’s About The Objects!

Its about the objects, it always has been.

In the last day or so, I feel like I’ve had an epiphany, a ‘light bulb’ moment. Throughout unit 2, I have been struggling to decipher exactly what my three dimensional drawings represent; however after a tutorial, I was reminded that it is ok to be interested in objects purely for their aesthetics. If I am totally honest with myself, the real reason I am drawn to specific objects and enjoy responding to them, is simply because I like how they look and feel. They are aesthetically pleasing. I’ve realised that to make refined, beautiful pieces of jewellery, aesthetics are so obviously important, yet my personal interests have been blinding me from seeing and creating this beauty.

Yet again, I have naively been trying to incorporate ALL my interests into my pieces.

When I look back even to my BA, I always struggled to combine my research, interests and thoughts into my final jewellery, and in this project especially, I have found that I create 3D drawings much more successfully when I solely look into how an object physically looks...forgetting the background story, simply concentrating on aesthetics. I have always found myself coming back to objects; the same kind of objects, with function, practicality and mechanisms, and I love the idea of celebrating the ordinary. I revisited the quote I found by William Morris - “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life” - this is so true for me. I still am incredibly interested in researching feminine issues, but this does not mean that I have to relate to it in my physical work...and I am starting to come to terms with the fact that I don’t actually want to anymore. I don’t want to be known as ‘the girl who makes feminist jewellery’, because I don’t feel strongly enough about the subject to argue with anyone about it.

I am much more passionate about objects and our relationships with them, and the idea of them being part of the framework of our lives...I could talk to you for hours about fascinating, everyday objects (but don’t worry, I wont right now).

I love to read and write, I now realise I can fulfil my found curiosities through writing; I am going to set myself goals to achieve this. I know for certain that I would like to teach, and this continual research into a wide variety of areas of design will only benefit me. I want to start writing regular reviews on exhibitions, articles or journals and create conversations about makers I see as pioneers in the jewellery and design world. Thinking back to the Pathways seminars with Jane Webb and how much her knowledge inspired me, this now seems to make so much more sense for my own personal practice - separating my writing and my physical work, making the processes more natural, more enjoyable and truer to me.

I’m trying very hard to not contradict everything I have been writing about in the last couple of posts...my intentions haven’t totally changed and nor have my plans for my making, its just my understanding of how they embody my thoughts and interests has slightly shifted. Then having the confidence to step back and say, ‘yes this is it. This is what my practice is about.’

In the last post I briefly began to talk about the type of objects I am interested in. Objects with movement, practicality and function, they are useful, mundane objects; I want to transform these silent associates of our lives into something seen as joyous and luxurious. I have been using bright colours to attract attention and create a feeling of celebration; the forms and structures echo elements from everyday objects. I aim to recreate the character in which the objects themselves have been made, exploring similar materials and techniques, yet used to produce a completely different outcome - jewellery.

Understanding my Curiosities

I decided that it was important for my own understanding, to take a step back and analyse the path my practice has taken. I often find myself saying that objects inspire me, and that the narrative of my practice revolves around objects, yet I wasn’t quite sure exactly what kind of objects I was talking about. I felt the need to define which objects inspire me; I wanted to find out if they came under a certain type or if they were a more random collection. In the past I have always categorised them as domestic objects, and on the surface this does appear correct. However, when I looked back at my samples, I could no longer see the original objects anymore. I saw curious little specimens, displaying movement and tension. They vaguely represented domestic actions; pushing, pulling, twisting and folding, and I found comfort in these actions. I have uncovered that it is practical, interactive objects with mechanisms that I find most inspiring. Where the objects are intended to be used isn’t the most important element anymore, (although it still is relevant) it is the usefulness, the movement and the familiarity that is vital to my practice.

This realisation has made me evaluate my samples in a new light, allowing me to positively acknowledge which I liked best but more importantly understand why. Materially, I know which of my experiments have been most successful in helping me fine tune my practice...for example, I now appreciate my resin samples were redundant of interaction; the objects inside are trapped, meaning we can no longer access or feel a connection to them. However the combination of the solid, smooth metal mechanisms with the free flowing thread feel much more successful, and encompass my interests in objects with movement and contact.

The Professional Platforms unit (where I have been acting as a teaching assistant on the BA unit X) has made me realise how much my way of thinking has changed as a result of being on the MA. Having spent the whole of unit 2 questioning my own practice, forcing myself to answer questions I don’t necessarily know the final answers to, I have found myself encouraging the students to do the same and question why they are doing things. I have started to appreciate that I actually have more knowledge than I give myself credit for, and as the project has gone along, my confidence has grown and I feel much happier getting more involved in tutorials and workshops. As a student with my degree experiences fresh in my mind, I’ve found the students feel more comfortable approaching me to ask questions; I am not there to officially mark their work or tell them off, I am merely there to help and advise them to the best of my ability.

In this unit I have been uncovering new meanings behind my interests, narrowing yet deepening my research. I feel like my practice is becoming clearer and easier for me to define. Despite still having unanswered questions, my confidence in finding the resolutions is growing.

MAKING Propositions

Quite a lot has happened over the last few weeks, and I feel my practice is finally starting to gain some movement and rhythm.

After spending quite a lot of time thinking, I decided that during the Easter break I would ban myself from my laptop and note book...and give myself one whole week of making. No words allowed (ish).

I sat at my bench with the samples I had made already; and like I had done earlier in the unit with my found objects, I interrogated them. I choose particular samples that I liked the most and tried to identify to myself why I liked them. Was it the form? The size? The notion of function? I then took each sample and recreated variations of it; I asked ‘what if?’ questions like, “what if it couldn’t sit flat on the table?” or “what if I combined elements of two samples?” this helped me to identify and acknowledge functions and details that I really liked within the samples.

After a visiting The Whitworth as part of my professional platforms unit, I was inspired by their ethos and the new brand they are promoting. All the work exhibited in the gallery and products for sale in the shop are carefully selected to represent pioneering, playful and intelligent practitioners. I have tried to reflect this attitude in my own work, bringing a light-hearted approach to my experimentations, not worrying or overthinking things and just ‘doing’.

As well as “what if?” questions, I decided to isolate samples I liked the most, and created their families, for example, the samples skinny Aunty, its fat Uncle or its Siamese twin cousins. I found this new way of sample making extremely fruitful, it allowed me to very quickly create a lot of variations, not worrying about what it’s going to be. At this point in the project, I am not concerned with making samples that are directly obvious as jewellery; I am purely concentrating on shapes, forms and the visual communication they portray.

Because of my newfound interest in the language of objects and the way colour, materials and form can influence a person’s perception of something, I went and bought lots a brightly coloured yarn, some colourful false nails and nail varnish, charity shop blue & white china, and some water clear resin. I started to experiment with setting the different everyday materials in the resin, first simply in some ice cube trays. I liked the way that the water clear resin seemed to intensify and light up the colour of the objects trapped inside. I also made some simple tube settings and used glass lenses for bases, a simple but effective way to act as a carrier for the resin. I like the combination of the brass with the resin; it immediately created ‘jewellery’ like appearance to the samples.

After making quite a lot of samples, I lay them together on a plain sheet of paper; I could see clear patterns had started to form, I could identify my favourites, and decide which aesthetics I thought were successful and which weren’t. It helped me to know where to go next, or should I say what to make next!

I really like the contrast of the solid, smooth metal and the free flowing thread; I also like how using thread, textiles and yarn has allowed me to easily experiment with an endless variety of colours, and how textiles have a very close historical relationship with domesticity and women.

While I have been spending a lot of time in my studio making, I have noticed how I seem to be most intrigued and attracted to the everyday, practical elements of creating. For example, the circle of cereal box cardboard I made and used to create hand made rope, the strips of masking tape used to measure out rings that I stick in my notebook for future reference, or the way the sticky tape labels are wrapped around each length of tube, identifying its width and thickness. I have also started to really like the photographs I take of my samples in situ; where they were made, on the wooden, scratched and burnt bench, amongst the tools that created them. This is something I need to further question in my practice...what is it about these things that I am attracted to? How does using and holding them make me feel? Is it about doing? About movement or relationships? I'm not exactly sure yet, but this is what I need to underpin and find out in order for me to feel like I have grounding and clarity in my practice. 

 “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life” 

William Morris