Lasercut original pattern, parts all made into jewels within the La Geometrie Series
Artist statement for La Geometrie Series
I regard myself as the architect of my own worldview. Yet the foundation of my knowledge is based on truths discovered by others, truths that I have learned from books and teachers, and not from my own lived experience.
I accept and use the tenets of Cartesian geometry without question in order to create my work. I create plans for jewellery in AutoCad, using a code of point and line, on what amounts to an invisible - and border-less – plane.
I learned the basics of this geometry as a young student, but now I rely on intermediaries to facilitate my use of it. So, despite my dependence on this system of mathematics, how much of its teachings am I consciously aware of implementing in my work? I cannot say. Is it because my use of it has become second nature, or because I never knew the extent of its reach? I don’t know.
I decided to go right back to basics. I sought to rediscover the truths that allow my works to materialize, beginning at the point where philosopher and mathematician René Descartes thought himself, and then the blank plane, into existence.
The drawings - come works - as arranged before you, are the result of this search. In geometry I trust.
Melissa Cameron, April 2012
