black and night

from the Bettina Speckner workshop I did last year.

The centre work alters recycled objects, while the other two work with large black beads which I took from my small collection of large beads (I had three in black, three in red and three in white, all acquired in Albany, WA, while I was on assignment down there for a few days, years ago.) These were bought specifically to wear to a 20’s theme party held by my littlest sister.

The necklace recycled an umbrella handle (from an umbrella I ‘borrowed’ from my mum/dad, and which later collapsed in a Melbourne storm – hey, it was originally from London, so don’t talk to me about a Perth umbrella not living up to a Melbourne shower…) and an electrical power cord. I sliced everything (yup, one trick pony…) and then reconstructed the parts.

I flippantly dismiss my slicing as my ‘one trick’, but in this case I was looking at my practice from a different angle, and created some particularly self-reflecting work. For whatever reason, I ended up working in reverse. I usually design a bunch of shapes, and then slice them. For this I sliced a bunch of objects, and then designed with them.

I was reminded of this project this morning, when I opened a parcel from Jasmine Matus for the Box Project. It’s going to be an interesting experiment, whichever way I slice it.