So I’m working on another exhibition at the moment, for which I’ve produced these sample squares of a new pattern. A friend of mine, the head of jewellery and objects at Slippery Rock University in Pensylvania, Sean Macmillan, got in contact with me to see if I would be interested in collaborating with him for the Co:operation GARNISH exhibition. This show, being curated by Rachel Timmins and Brigitte Martin, is meant to be a collaboration of unlike forces aimed at building links between a fairly disparate jewellery community here in the US. After some initial discussions about our suitability to pair up (we are technically both metalsmiths) we decided that a large-sculpture-making, techno-challenged academic in Slippery Rock and a delicate-jewellery-making, CAD-using, basement-studio-hermit from Australia now living in Seattle was about as different as we needed to be!
Ttrue to my usual method, I got straight into drawing a pattern in Cad, which we had both agreed over a long text-message conversation, needed to be ‘lacy’ (see images). And true to his, Sean soon texted me a mobile-phone image of his hand-built model, a roughly sketched and assembled pattern – in the way of a garment pattern – made out of used computer-paper and masking-tape.
Cut to a few months later, and here are some images of the sample squares of pattern that I’ve had cut, checked out and then sent off to Sean to play with. (Notice the miscommunication with the laser-cutters resulted in the lead-ins being on the wrong side of the line – we’re after the sheet more than the ‘drop-outs’ in this instance as that’s what Sean will work with.)
And here’s the first test works! These necklaces are in stainless steel and vitreous enamel with titanium hinge pins. As test pieces – a sort of proof of concept – I think they are pretty successful.
The actual part that will allow Sean to work his magic was signed off by us today, and will be cut by Pololu early next week. Once Sean has the pieces he will send me all of these inserts and I’ll have some more enamelling to do!
Melissa Cameron
Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.
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It sounds such an interesting project, Melissa. I am not familiar with Sean McMillan’s work, but I wonder how his sculptural making techniques as well as his contextual approaches might influence your much smaller scale work in the future? It would be great to see the development as he sends you his starting points as a challenge.
A few years ago, there was an exhibition/project here in the UK (apologies to the UK artists who are very familiar with the project) entitled ‘Pairings’, developed by Manchester Metropolitan University (http://www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/pairings/)
It was a fascinating project, well documented, exhibited and followed up by a conference. The conference papers are available from the above website and provide interesting reading.
From my personal perspective, the outcomes were variable, but none-the-less thought provoking and raising many questions. We now live in an era where working ‘collaboratively’ is of great interest to the applied arts community. At the same time it raises complex questions for the individual maker used to working individually in the studio.
And even for our Heat Exchange 2 Blog: while we are not intending to work collaboratively as such, the intention is to share thoughts, possibly processes, inspiration, images etc, taking a very open approach. We are hoping that this will be fruitful and stimulating for the participating artists as well as audiences.
Here we go: I am inspired already by this exchange!
http://thepairingsproject.wordpress.com/exhibitions/