Kendal wrote:
"Do we as jewelers have a greater appreciation for the body as a form? Do we see the body as somehow detached from the person because we use it for different means?"
I really liked this insightful question and it comforted me that it was posed by a female- I ask myself questions like this all the time and what I get hung up on is relating my objective perspective to my gender. The idea that my scopophilia and fixation on the 'activation-potential' of the body could be attributed to some latent cross-gender interest in creating adornment is a huge revelation.
In coming to this epiphany, first -Thanks Kendal!, second -I waned to insert some additional Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory into the mix for you all to embrace or negate. In 1905 Sigmund Freud wrote Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality wherein he put forth an explanation for the sexual development of a person from infancy to adolescence, a concept he called psychosexual development. It consists of five stages each of which relate to a specific area of the body and the realization or denial of an instinctual sexual appetite associated with that body part.
The transitional object could then nurture awareness of erogenous zones creating a reciprocal relationship that as adults we continue to serve through making jewelry from which we derive erotic satisfaction from.
If you'd like to read more about Freud's theory of psychosexual development, wikipedia's synopsis is pretty succinct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosexual_development
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.
Nov 3, 2009
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