made of plastic...

Somehow, with a great deal of juggling and the generous help of grandmothers, anuties and friends, I managed to take part in a week long work shop as part of Objectlab at the Sydney College of the Arts at the beginning of July.

The workshop, 'Unnatural jewellery" was run by Australian contemporary jeweller Melinda Young, and explored and challenged approaches to making, materials and deconstructing the found object.

We were fortunate to have small group of four students so it was almost like having one on one with the tutor. It was an intense, challenging and very inspiring week, where I was encouraged to work outside of my natural comfort zone in choice of material, colour palatte and time contraints.

The week started with two days of quick making exercises ( some, the quick schmuckies, only 5 minutes long!) leading into the last three days where we started to focus on making a small body of work for an end of week exhibition.

Everyone, including Melinda contributed to a communal table of found or odd materials which we used for the weeks work. I was also reminded of just how useful and fun a hot glue gun can be ( usually a big no no in jewellery workshops but as we were working with plastic and 'junk" it was more than acceptable.)

Above is the material I chose to work with for my 'collection', the main material being artificial grass I bought in Al Ain,UAE. My theme was 'a crack in everything'

Pin #1, #2, #3 and #4 , silver, wooden blocks, plastic grass and foliage, Hama beads

 

plastic grass, ping pong ball, hot glue, metal chain, nail enamel

silver, nail enamel, plastic grass, hot glue, waxed linen thread

 pin #4 silver, wooden blocks, plastic grass and foliage

Comments

[Woolliemind.blogspot.com]

What a great opportunity and a great test of your creativity. I love that you used the grass and the cuisenaire rods to make much of the jewellery. I remember using those rods in primary school!