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. 

Oct 14, 2009

Submission as Beauty

I newer thought about beauty in relation to submission before reading David Hickeys text about the beauty of the submissive elements in Robert Mappelthore's images. It somewhat helped me to understand why I've been so touched by this work by Swedeish jewelry artist Åsa Skogberg. It´s called "necklace of love" but clearly talks about the border between love and abuse. I know that one of her main points was how the conservative values that the pearl necklace represented were constrictive and "strangeling" in a the same way that a relationship can be. But to me it was the act and making of the piece that really got to me. The endurance and submission trust that it took from her side to have a person make it on her and the fact that she kind of sacrifice her self to make the work.
Åsa Skogberg "Necklace of Love"

Also makes me think of how some people keep wearing their wedding ring, even though it has gotten too small and basically is deforming the shape of their body. A submission to love?

Dutch jewelry artist Hilde de Decker

             Dutch jewelry artist Hilde de Decker
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