Craftsmanship
Concept is meaningless without clarity of expression through a high degree of technical understanding and skill. To express an idea clearly in words requires the relevant vocabulary along with an understanding of sentence structure, grammar and syntax. Similarly, through a range of materials – metals, bone, stone, wood, found objects, rubber etc. – and appropriate techniques, I attempt to form a dialogue both with and through the things that I make; each has its own dialect, and each inflection must be learned to produce work with focus, meaning and narrative.
‘Beautility’
Form does not necessarily follow function. While the latter should never be a slave to the former, perhaps it is true that the interstitial zone between the two is where good design and visual poetry happen; where the equal, harmonious synthesis of beauty and utility is made possible. Beautility, perhaps. When I design and make jewellery, its function is inseparable from its form. A coin is not heads; nor is it tails. Both, however, are defined by its rim; the edge of anything demarks what it is, and what it is not.
Context
Where does jewellery go when it is not being worn? Where does it spend most of its time? Where is it while it is being exhibited? When a piece is given or bought, plucked from its thoughtful display, what is its fate? I often make considered, labour-intensive objects so I want them to be equally thought of when they change hands. I see the relationship between the object and its context being similar to that which exists between form and function and aim to make items that give due consideration to all four.
Precious
We are told repeatedly that time is money. I have no time for this trope, which possibly explains why I seem to have precious little of either. One diamond looks very much like another to me, as it does to many others; that it may have cost more than some can spend on food in one day, one week, one year or even one decade is iniquitous. A pebble found on that blustery, cold and sand-whipped day when you picked it up, numb-fingered and dumbfounded by its insouciant beauty, is truly priceless. Nothing lasts forever, not even a diamond. It’s all going to be less than dust one day; time has a value, not a price.
Interdisciplinarity
I also work with the mediums of photography, drawing, collage and the written word; I strive to develop work utilising and combining all of these disciplines and make pieces that question the breadth of the space between them to the extent that these spaces become more important than the mediums; therefore I am not a jewellery designer. I am not a photographer. I am not an author. I am not a visual artist.