As contemporary jewellers I feel we are starting on good footing: our production is small scale and mostly local; pieces are made to last; care is taken to save and reuse off-cuts and filings of precious metals; and there is good public awareness of the worth of the labour and quality of materials that go into our craft.
A few months ago I was asked to do a Vox Pop on the question: “What do you do to make your life more sustainable?” Being put on the spot, I gave a brief answer about recycling and The Treasury that left quite a bit out. Sustainability is such an integral part of my life and I’d like to use this blog post as a chance to share some examples of the personal side of sustainability… hopefully it might provide some food for thought.
Clearly some of these ‘repairs’ are more practical than others, but that’s part of what I love about creative repair, that in addition to simply reinstating functionality, it adds dynamism to what was once destined for landfill and proudly proclaims, “I’ve been born again!”.
I created The Treasury as a space to explore a more sustainable approach to fashion—one that incorporates creativity, community and self-belief. For me, it is the place where my path towards a more sustainable practice has really started to take off. Some people come because they want to incorporate sustainability into their every-day lives, but many are just pleasantly surprised that this workshop is sustainability in action.
One of the richest qualities of jewellery is its intimate potency. When it is strongest, a treasured piece of jewellery is a small blinding spark of personal significance, a night star by which to navigate, a marker that tells us from where we have come and to where we are going. There are only two things in my life that are like that (besides people)—music and picture books—and because music is impossible to talk about, I am also going to share some of my most potent and intimate picture books in this post….
Plants and mushrooms are very inspiring. In the ground they are perfect little creations, balanced shapes and patterns that are in perfect harmony with their environment. They are the biggest inspiration for my jewellery, their basic forms like a template for beauty, their structure like a map of forces that flow though them as they grow and live. And on the plate they are divine, subtly cooked in combinations to happily fill the belly.
Oma, my grandmother, is an intense old German lady. She cooks a mean kartoffelpuffer (potato pancake), likes to save money by re-using postage stamps, voted for Pauline Hansen (she thinks that immigrants should go back home, somehow forgetting she was also one), thought Adolf Hitler was right (about who knows what), and taught me to whistle real loud with my fingers (she was a tomboy!). Incidentally, my grandfather taught me how to make fart noises under my armpit in the shower—a real classy couple, my grandparents.
“And it is not just physical torture—spending days alone at the bench drinking too much coffee and talking to your hammer because there is no one else, the myopia of extended concentration upon one small spot in space gradually taking its toll, the smallest things becoming all encompassing, the devil in the detail cackling as you chase ever finer scratches in the pursuit of a perfect mirror polish…. It is like a drug: sometimes you just get all tangled up and have a bad trip, becoming deeply unsettled…”
…I am more intrigued by the idea of “the life of the object”. Kevin Murray describes jewellery as “attaching itself to people and disengaging itself from people”. The jewellery object has a trajectory and a journey to travel in its life. In this way, jewellers can be seen as tutors of objects. We prepare the jewellery objects for the journeys they must travel.
“The impenetrability and heaviness of stone is thus at striking odds with the imagery West conjures out of their surface and substance. There is an essential play here between solidity and lightness, surface and depth, which ultimately poses an unanswerable question: how can stones float, or flowers become as lasting as geological time?” (Julie Ewington on Margaret West)
In Anna Davern’s second Journal entry she examines the influence that British jeweller Caroline Broadhead has had on her work since studying at Sydney College of the Arts. Says Anna, “I was blown away by the way these works complemented and extended the body. And I realised that jewellery can be about the whole body and not just the finger, the ear, or (heaven forbid) the lapel!”
This is the first of four Journal entries from Anna Davern. In this entry Anna introduces a book that fundamentally changed the way she thought of jewellery; the materials used, the thoughts and feelings evoked, the way jewellery relates to the body and its potential for theatricality…
This week’s Journal entry sees Phoebe Porter concluding her tour of the Abbotsford Convent, one of Melbourne’s creative hubs, brimming with beautiful architecture, creative excellence and also home to Phoebe’s studio.
Creativity is a strange creature. It’s the combination of every experience we have: art, memory, technology, family, design, history, love, loss, knowledge, nature, language, and so on…with this in mind, we introduce Journal; an insight into the gossamer threads that are woven together to give life to a rich creative vision.
The inaugural Journal entry sees Phoebe Porter taking us on a tour of the Abbotsford Convent, one of Melbourne’s creative hubs, brimming with beautiful architecture, creative pursuit and also home to Phoebe’s studio.
