Course Description

This course is meant to be a space for you to examine and deepen your relationship to the field and your own practice through readings, discussions, and presentations.  The readings are meant to expand your perspective on the field of jewelry and metalsmithing, to define its particularities and concerns in relation to the discourses of the contemporary art world.

Together we will explore a series of seminal theoretical texts, seeking ways to relate them to our own practice.  Through these texts we will encounter a series of themes and historical perspectives that are crucial to the field of jewelry, while also delving into fields and areas of inquiry, that have not commonly been related to our field, but perhaps should or could be.  Our aim is to get a historical and interdisciplinary perspective on where we are as artists/makers today, how we got here and where we could go from here. The course aims to bring up critical questions on why we make, whom we make for and the meaning of our practice beyond the studio and the jewelry and metals world.

This is a chance to practice your skills in connecting theory, reading and writing to your work and to build a vocabulary and ground of reference around your ideas, interests and intentions. It’s a chance to take part in an intense discourse around your field, which you might be asked to do many times in the future of your career.

The Wednesday meetings will adopt the form of a reading/talking circle. Your role in the group is important and the success of our conversations will be based on your participation and engagement. We will all take turns in presenting and leading the discussion and also examine what “research through practice” might mean for us, by exploring some ways of connecting theory and making. 

Sep 30, 2009

ornaments artifacts materials












Our first assignment in studio was to display 40 materials that interested us. The discussion during the presentations touched equally upon the materials and the way we chose to display them. I thought the questions and responses were a great overlap to this introductory discussion on ornament. I randomly wrote down things people said, about their own work or others:
  • is there a hierarchy?
  • are you tip-toeing around your materials
  • what do we impose on our materials?
  • "I chose a white background to see the images clearly"
  • You are making your own material.
  • How did you cull your materials? What did you consider but in the end leave out and why?
  • "I wanted a mini-museum"
  • How did you rationalize the order of your materials?
  • The materials versus the presentation...why, why, why?
  • "I am so connected to these materials I want to display them in a way that makes them seem important to others."
  • I am very interested that if you think these objects are in the same family, I want you to teach me how to look at them.
  • Why did you have to change the materials?
  • Just curious...what do you guys define as materials anyway?
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1 comment:

  1. SissiOctober 1, 2009 at 11:35 AM

    Is man´s urge to create ornaments driven by an urge to understand the world? Organizing, sorting and grouping elements according to geometry or other preferences (using variables such as form, color, size, material ) seems to be a soothing practice for us.

    Wondering what different ways you guys found to organize your materials...

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