Candidacy Contained

Quantum Intricacies Made Macroscopic

This semester has very much been about “throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks” (double pun!)

I used the wider, commonly intuitive understanding of wood's properties in sculpture to translate my experience in metal. My specific interests are how it frays, splits, decays, and grows

Passage began with the idea of an essentialization of an energy flowing through living things. I thought of a humble, otherwise unremarkable branch, having the capacity to contain something that gives it shape or perhaps informs the shape of its being

passage i-v

In the adaptation to a neckpiece, it was instrumental that instead of terminal ends, that the piece be circular. I wanted an entrapped flow through the use of a continuous loop, gravitating or rather breaking from the gravity of the wearer. I used the wood junctions as I would with beads, using jewelry verbiage to bring these sculptures to the body

Occluded/Oculus

Containment is a broad concept I’ve been playing with more this year from the perspective of jewelry making. In past work, I’ve investigated the body as vessel. Vessels which are objects that give shape to their contents in armor or adornment, or conversely where contents inform the shape of the vessel.

I approached it with the classic, is something that is solid even solid? Like how we’re atomically 99% nothing or something mind blowing like that. And I imagined a lattice of particles, trapped. Trapped in stones. With these stones, I wanted to study an alternative way of revealing an internal dialogue that was in between a wearable and sculpture. Something tangible you could handle. So I turned to vessel language, and used die forming techniques to press shells that formed the two halves of a stone that captures these energetic, frayed wire

And then I held them. Sat with them. Put them on pedestals. Stuck them onto walls. Resisting the urge to stick a pinback on or chaining them together. They needed to retain an individuality and a looseness or freedom that allowed for play and interaction. When finally bringing them to the body as a wearable, apparently macrame was an answer. I wish the damn things could just float but sometimes rope and monofilament are all you need to tie things together

Containment Theory

Containment Theory I acts as a conduit, constraining orbiting brass captured by the copper torq, pulled around the wearer. An inescapable tension, awaiting manipulation and a release into the surrounding space.

In Containment Theory II, I capture an explosion of energy as brass expands and extends past the peeling copper torq. The frayed ends escape the confines of the splitting anticlastic form and the gravity of the wearer.

What is actually holding the energy (wire) in place? Is it the copper torq constraining the orbiting metal? Or the gravity of the wearer, the tension in the metal? To what extent does my intervention impede the intention of how the metal moves around the body?

documenting the fray

Documentation played a major role in the development of this body of work by capturing the intermediate phases of the fray. With each successive die, I photographed the wire as it fell apart in a random, energetic fashion

It inspired the use of frames as a way to compose or constrain these free-moving wires to elevate the silver threads from artifact/sample to jewelry

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