Makers Part 12

In alchemy, silver is one of the noble metals. In mythology, silver is representative of moon energy and the balance between black and white. It is the color of the Greek goddess Artemis (Roman Diana). As a symbol associated with the moon, silver suggests purity, strength, clarity, focus, and feminine energy.  My next maker, Gab lives on the south coast of NSW in Australia and makes beautiful jewellery out of recycled silver. It is as if the material itself guides the process of making and Gab's work for me, is an embodiment of these symbolic feminine processes of renewal and intuition. Her jewellery can be found in her etsy shop RedPeg Eco Studio, on her blog and on her facebook page.

Can you tell me a little about your background?

I live on the far south coast of NSW in the beautiful Bega Valley, with my partner Mikey and our four legged friend, “Doug”. I studied at the National Art school in Sydney majoring in Sculpture. I love op shopping and garage saleing, finding forgotten treasures. I’m a lover of 50’s vintage and “Nannaism”, the old ways of mending and making do. The idea of living frugally and sustainably appeals greatly to me, although I’m yet to get there.
                                      

What do you make?

I make jewellery, body adornments and wearable art. I’m dedicated to creating art with minimal environmental impact. I work with only recycled sterling silver, I buy it in sheet and wire form from a company committed to supplying only recycled silver from commercial and industrial sources. I recycle, up-cycle and salvage. I hunt around garage sales and op shops for old jewellery I can reclaim pieces from, like broken silver jewellery or old strands of beads. Natural Alternatives, such as vinegar and bi-carb soda are used in the cleaning, polishing and oxidizing processes.

I am self taught, I treat the work as a sculptor not a jeweler, therefore, I think, my work has a pretty big point of difference. Some may say it lacks the refinement of a “jeweler”, others may say it is more of a wearable art piece than a ‘traditional’ piece of jewellery. I tend to call my work wearable art as each piece is crafted as an artwork. To me, each piece of jewellery I make, whether earrings or a trinket or even a bangle is a mini sculpture.

                                       

What attracted you to this particular medium? How did you get started?

My background is in Sculpture. I’ve been making and exhibiting sculpture for over15years but have always had a very keen interest in Jewellery and always intended to study silversmithing at some point. But you know how life gets in the way. The opportunity to go back to fulltime education and the realization I’d have to move back to the city didn’t fit with where I was in life. I’d always been making jewellery for myself and friends, mainly with found objects and beads. One day, (about 6year ago) I brought some silver wire and silver sheet and set about working with it in the same way I would if making a sculpture……. I’ve slowly built up a cache of tools and have taught myself how to use them. I’m sure some silversmiths would have a fit, if they saw me at work. Ever the heavy handed sculptor!

                

How does your practice fit in with your everyday life? Do you have your own studio space and when do you work and where?

I work fulltime in my Studio which is an enclosed verandah on our 1940’s house.
Its great working from home although I sometimes think if my studio wasn’t actually attached to the house, I might get more done. It’s easy to get distracted with the domestics. I spend most of the normal weekly working hours in the studio, whether it be filling orders for Gallery shops or preparing stock for markets or just tinkering, playing with whats at hand and learning new techniques through exploration of the medium.

What are the best and worst aspects about working with this medium?

I’m not sure I have a worst aspect. I get the occasional burn when I’m soldering and sometimes cut myself with sharp pieces of silver sheet, but overall I love working with silver. I love the tactility, the malleability, the endless ways of working with it. I love the colour. I especially love the colour against the skin. I love that the more I tinker with it the more exciting and new things I find I can do with it.

Who or what inspires you?

I draw a lot of inspiration from the natural world, what I like to call natures patterns. The shape and harmony of things such as leaves, seedpods and shells are a constant amazement to me. I’m also a huge fan of the Danish modernist designers of the 50’s and 60’s, I love the organic rhythm achieved in so many of the designs at that time.

What other mediums would you love to explore?

I’m really happy to continue exploring silver at this stage. I hope to hone my techniques and practices and find yet still more ways of working the silver. I feel as if I’ve barely scratched the surface with the possibilities. As with the silver, I’ll also continue to work on my large scale steel sculptures and I’m also into sewing and other construction based crafts.

What do you hope to do next with your practice?

I hope to go on doing this fulltime and not only living a fulfilling life but making an honest income out of what I love doing. I’ll keep making and tinkering, exploring and exhibiting, selling and expanding, and hopefully smiling and laughing.

 

Thanks Gab! If you are a maker or a collector, I would love to hear from you!

Makers Part 11

                                            


"Calligraphy is structured movement, not static form" says Andrew van der Merwe. Calligraphy is an ancient art and one in which the viewer is confronted with both meaning and form on first viewing. A kind of visual poetry that slips back and forth between writing and art. My next maker, Mary who lives in the UK draws on her logical skills to chart the details of the play between these two forms of communicating. The results of her explorations can be found in her etsy shop, Calligraphette, on tumblr and on Facebook

Can you tell me a little about your background? 

I'm from the West Coast of Ireland and true to Irish form I have travelled widely. I've been around the world twice and have lived in New York, Mallorca, Tenerife, Sydney, Jersey (Channel Islands), London, Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, UK and I've very recently moved back to the beautiful Channel Islands again. By profession I am an accountant but I've always done well at art and I taught myself calligraphy. I now run a business using calligraphy to make products.

At the moment I divide my time between doing intensive accountancy work (I work in turn-around which means that our team will go into a struggling business, assess it for it's strengths and weaknesses, develop a turn-around action plan and then implement this on behalf of banks, shareholders or creditors), and my true love, my fledging calligraphy business. The accountancy work I do on a project basis pays the bills, which is great as my calligraphy business is in the early start-up stage.

What do you make?

I've taken on an ambitious task of trying to build a sustainable art business, which I hope to be able to run full-time in the not too distant future.
I have spent a lot of time on R & D, and have divided my business into:-
Prints - book-marks, cards, wall-hangings
Fashion - jewellery and accessories
Home-wares - Coming in 2014 (cushions, mirror lightboxes)
Bespoke - calligraphy for weddings, events, personalised art-work

What attracted you to this particular medium? How did you get started?

As part of my art exam in school, I choose calligraphy as my craft (in Ireland the art exam is broken into 4 categories, still life, craft, life drawing and imaginative composition). I bought a pen set and an instruction booklet and began to doodle. I loved it - I wasn't very good, but I loved it. I started to buy books on advanced calligraphy went to visit museums to view the Celtic manuscripts to see what was possible.

                                                 

How long have you been making?

I've been doing calligraphy since I was in school and over the years I have done lots of wedding invitations and works of art for my family and friends who requested them. When I left school, I got into university for both accountancy and art. I choose to do accountancy at that time and parked my art, knowing that I would eventually come back to it. I decided to open as a calligraphy business in 2011 because more and more people started to ask me to put my art and craft items up for sale.

How does your practice fit in with your everyday life? Do you have your own studio space and when do you work and where?
  

            

           

I think that I have, or at least am working towards, a healthy life balance. I use my skills as an accountant to earn money but I only work on a project basis which means that I can spend my downtime working on my calligraphy business - fulfilling orders, creating pieces and researching new ideas. I have created a studio space in the guest bedroom. I’m lucky as I can take my business anywhere, but at minimum I need loads of light, a good internet connection and my art materials to hand.
                                          

What are the best and worst aspects about working with this medium? 

I've started my business with paper products, (book-marks, cards and wall-hangings) and accept commissions for bespoke work. The great thing about using paper and card as a start point is that I can keep costs low which means that I can do lots of experiments with the design layouts. I mainly use felt-tipped calligraphy pens when I'm working with paper as I find these much easier to work with - they are not as messy as dipping inks, which dye my fingers.

Who or what inspires you?

My main inspiration comes from my customers, and the research I do into the stories behind the images. I try via my work to bring out as much of the story character as I can. One of the most moving stories was a lady who bought my card from one of the shops I sell into - it was a little quote that read: 

'Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain'. 

This lady had just recovered from chemo and she bought more of this design to give to her fellow patients in the treatment centre to give them a boost. I love that my art was used in this way.

Do you get creative blocks? If so, how do you deal with it?

I don't get creative blocks as such, but I am very easily distracted, When this happens I take a break and then get back to things afterwards. I live by lists and I try and give myself targets each day, so today for example, (even though it is the most amazing day ever and there is a parade passing my house), I need to work on my Christmas designs. I'm now living by the beach so it doesn't take me very long to get back on track. If I want to stay living by the beach then I need to make my business a success!

 What other mediums would you love to explore? 

I'm very excited about developing my home-ware ranges, as I’ll be dealing with fabric, screen printing, plastic, mirror and hopefully ceramics. I’ll start with cushions and mirror light-boxes - all featuring calligraphy. I want to create bright unique products that have a really good quality finish. I hope that lots of my products will become treasured possessions in many homes around the world.www.calligraphette.com
 
                                             

What do you hope to do next with your practice?

I want to continue to build my brand. As my aim is to build an art business that will sustain me as I grow a family. I also want to create a children's book out of my calligraphy animals and I would like to incorporate my existing designs onto my home-ware range as this develops. …. and I hope to launch my website in the next few days (www.calligraphette.com), so lots to keep me busy! Live well, love passionately and always, always make time in your life for beautiful writing xxx

Thank you Mary! Are you an artist or an avid collector? I would love to hear from you! 

Makers Part 10

The psychological principle of gestalt maintains that the human eye sees objects in their entirety before perceiving their individual parts, suggesting the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. My next maker Tate Lowe enacts this process in his beautiful constructions made of wood. You can check out his work on etsy at TateLowe and on his web site and Facebook.

Can you tell me a little about your background?

I grew up in a military family traveling across the country and overseas my whole childhood. When I headed out on my own I moved here to DeWitt, Michigan where I met my lovely wife and settled down. I’ve been here for 13 years, married for 10 and now have 2 wonderful kids that keep me on my toes.

                                     

What do you make?

I make wooden wall sculptures. I cut and shape pieces of wood into blocks and strips that I then manipulate in various ways. I use paints and stains and even fire to give depth and texture to the wood. These pieces are arranged into a finished piece that becomes a true sum of its parts.

What attracted you to this particular medium? How did you get started? 

Wood has always been something that attracted me. I love how even the medium itself can be beautiful in its grain patterns without any help from human hands. It is something I focus on a lot and I try to emphasize in my work. One of the key factors in me trying my hand at this came from an unlikely source. One evening we had a terrible storm with high winds. In the middle of the night a giant tree branch came crashing down from an old sugar maple and landed on our cars roof, doing some damage to it. After the mess was cleaned up and the car repaired I had a ton of material to play with. It is from that branch that I made a piece that would be my very first Etsy sale. 

How long have you been making?

I have been making seriously for about 3 years now. I always dabbled with woodworking and construction and had a love of art but never ventured out on that limb to put myself and my ideas out in the world before then. But ever since I have started doing this I have had no doubt that this is what I want to do and had been searching for in my life.

                         
How does your practice fit in with your everyday life? Do you have your own studio space and when do you work and where?

My work has become a large part of my life. Sawdust and paint soaked hands have become part of my everyday life. I work whenever I get the inspiration and a project or potential project is never far from my mind. My garage has become my studio space and my cars have been banished to the driveway, as there is just no room for them anymore. 

What are the best and worst aspects about working with this medium? 

The best part of working with wood is versatility I have with it and the options I have at hand. It can be shaped and changed in so many ways with so many tools that I really have only begun to explore it’s potential. And with every species of wood there are different characteristics to exploit and secrets to reveal.The downside to working with wood comes from one of the very things I like about it. It is a living medium. Made with natural fibers than expand and contract with the temperatures and humidity levels it encounters. This can cause some frustration when something I have been working on starts to warp on a humid day. Through experience I have been able to minimize that, but it can still happen from time to time. 

                               

Who or what inspires you?

I get a lot of inspiration from the world around me. Looking at a large field of trees in the spring or autumn makes me think of a color pallet that I want to rush home and make. The same goes for cityscapes of concrete or neon signs.

                                  

Do you get creative blocks? If so, how do you deal with it?

I do get creative blocks from time to time. Sometimes I get in a rut where I feel I am just making the same thing. One thing that can help me out is to just get away from it for a while. I go out and play with my kids, or a walk in the woods and stop trying to think of something. It is usually at times like that an idea pops in my head out of nowhere. 

What other mediums would you love to explore?

I would love to and have plans to eventually incorporate metal work into my arsenal. I love the feel of copper and steel mixed with wood. A combo that has been around for centuries. I would love to add a welding torch along side my wood burning torch.

What do you hope to do next with your practice?
I hope to continue to expand my line. There are things I want to do with lathework and other forms of wood shaping. I also hope to start creating more functional art in the near future. Things like tabletops and shelving. 

Thank you Tate! Are you a maker/artist or collector? I would love to hear from you! Don't forget to like my facebook page to keep up with my latest posts and listings.