Can jewellery ever be Art?

There are those that do not consider any form of Jewellery to be ART, does that mean that all paintings are ART?



Most of my work is constructed from ideas, messages I want to send or times I want to commemorate, stories that I feel need to be told is this not ART?

http://artjewellerybymarianb.blogspot.com

 



Memories are made of this - Reviewing past work

New Zealand Spirit Brooch Original

 

The Human Spirit just keeps on  keeping on.....Remember that when things get tough!

 

 

 

 I'm refreshing my spirit by looking through old techniques recalling past achievements (and disasters )  What seems a disaster or insurmountable at the time can often turn out to be helpful in the future.
This is the first one of the series If you look closely you will see a small crack in the Paua (tail) and a hole drilled right through (top left) I  made the holes in the Paua the same size as the holes in the copper and when  riveting it was too tight. The holes in the Paua need to be  at least .5 (half) a hole bigger than the metal to allow for the expansion of the silver rivets.(Experimentation) The other hole well that was just a mistake in the planning. It could have filled it with a rivet but I quite like the way the colour of whatever the brooch is pinned on just shows through.
Sticky backed genuine Paua sheet has advantages, can't "move" around when riveting but that makes it fairly unforgiving. I never found a successful way of drilling Paua and metal sheet together, using a Drill Press they always had to be drilled seperately.
This failure became the protype for a lovely brooch series.

Fingernails?? or rings ?? or earrings??

 These were originally offcuts from one of my Dunedin Art School projects "out of the Box"  possibilities. However the shape and its  possibilities so fascinated me that  using a shield shaped template I cut, annealled and shaped (with a rawhide mallet) on a metal mandrel these little objects. Thanks go to all those at Art School  who played with them discovering new dimensions for their wearability and acting as models.

There were tombstone pendants and Mourning Rings too

Some were imprinted with living plants then filled with black  glaze and overglazed with clear  and some contained the actual plants in a dried and pressed state. The  firing out kiln process worked great so long as paperclay and glaze right thickness. (Just trial and error that)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://artjewellerybymarianb.blogspot.com/

Jewellery for the Dead - Paper and Clay ceramics Process

                                                
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Some of my casting work

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Thanks to a friend

                                                    

 

And some polymer Clay





And then a reverse polymer Clay check

My vision is nearly complete.

Bush Maiden Brooch - if at first you don't succeed try again - Establishing Your Art Concepts can be difficult




Bush Maiden Brooch
Created as a tribute to the early Romantic painters of the 1800's (some of whom never visited NZ) who visualised New Zealand as a lush tropical paradise populated by beautiful maidens, ( and visualised/painted  men in Roman type toga's and young Maori women in bonnets with European features) But who also had early Christian ideas (and maybe fantasies) about converting the whole of New Zealand to European Christianity.
It was also a tribute to my Father's stories of The Bush Maidens who lonely Miners and Hunters might imagine populated the New Zealand Bush in the early European pioneering days.
I understand there are even earlier Maori legends of a pale skinned Fairy people who (as in European legends)sometimes lived with mortal spouses for a period of time and this may be a very interesting aspect to research.


The Bush Maiden Brooch is a combination of acid - etched Brass/ painted/fired with low fIreChina painting enamel "paint" and riveted onto a handmade (and pressed) copper brooch back.
Bush Maiden was rejected for Exhibition when first offered to its first Exhibition - but I took some advice and represented it in a different format and when presented to a  second Exhibition it was awarded a third prize


So all of you out there struggling to have your work recognised - don't give up! especially if you are really pleased with something - it may be necessary to look at your work from a different perspective (or get someone else too) occassionally but keep trying!!