TRACES
Defining the Intangible Through Jewelry & Adornment
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Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself.
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself.
Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies.
Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies.
We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious
We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious
of its glory, of its magnificence.
of its glory, of its magnificence.
― Alan Wilson Watts ―
Passage V - Passages, close-up, front.
To photograph a black hole, is to capture the rubble of star-stuff forming its illuminated accretion disk. To trace the fine paths of the fundamental particles that form our universe, physicists use colossal detectors that span a city and machines buried deep beneath the Earth to measure and manipulate particles smaller than the components that make up an atom.
Places, like home, have a gravity that pulls from miles away in the same way that the love for someone, and some things, transcend physical distances and time. Tombstones commemorate absence, clothing both gives and takes form from the body, microwaves contain bouncing electromagnetic waves - you can even put a blanket over a ghost.
To define the unseen, one must use the forces and structures surrounding the intangible through the space they displace, disrupt, and distort, in effect creating a positive to a negative.
The exhibition TRACES and the wearables produced and performed in, act as the positive, bridging the void between atomic forces and cosmic connections, and individual, inter-personal forces and gravities. The work, traces the abstract, giving form to the elusive presence of space that divides, by using the inherent material (physical, tangible, sometimes gaudy) qualities of fashion and jewelry, and the representation of the of indescribably small, and incoherently massive as a means of reaching out into the void and pulling the world, around the wearer to bring indescribable intangible forces to an intimate human scale.
DI Hub Blank_Lab projection of Orbital VIII - Between Two Lungs.
Down the Gravity Well Concept 1 \ Copper and bronze. H. 8 x W. 3 x D. 1 in.
DOWN
DOWN
THE
THE
GRAVITY
GRAVITY
WELL
WELL
Observe, on one end of the presented spectrum of masses, the gravity well.
It is the swirling void of compressing space-time, the mathematical geometric representation of the displacement and effect of massive bodies, ranging through planets, suns, and black holes, and their interactions with space and neighboring bodies. Gravity, an abstract force, a function of mass and acceleration, is best visualized by its effects. A falling apple, gathering of cosmic dust, and the invisible pull of two cosmic bodies colliding.
Through the progression of brooches, rings, garments, sculpture and the final culminating video performance, the gravity well is applied to sensations of longing and displacement to give them form.
Down the Gravity Well Concept 2: STAY | Copper, brass, bronze sterling silver, and topaz. H. 2 x W. 2 x D. 2 in.
Down the Gravity Well Concept 3: Escape | Brass, bronze, sterling silver and topaz. H. 5 x W. 2 x D. 2 in.
Black and white photos of Down the Gravity Well snow sequence courtesy of Max Loundenslager | The Anomaly ensemble on display at the CVA Gallery.
The Anomaly exist as its own abstraction within its own reality with its own set of distinctions and rules that become jarring when placed in a common reality. When contrasted and cut between the void and the desolate snow, empty walkways, and urban environments, it becomes surreal. The Anomaly’s nature, fights the nature of its surroundings.
A negative to a positive.
In every space, Down the Gravity Well Concept 4: The Fabric is a measure of displacement as the gravity well functions. The aluminized mylar acts as a highlighted blanket that renders the intangible. The Anomaly is the result of a being interacting and infringing between spaces. The work in its totality - the garment, performance, and film, is of belonging and the sense of wandering in-between.
DI Hub Blank_Lab projection of Orbital IV - Catalyst
orbitals
orbitals
Descending from cosmic altitudes, to the liminal intermolecular bonds that tie matter together, this chapter of TRACES explores another type of gravitation exhibited by the strong and weak forces.
The application of the atom and electron clouds is more than a scientific model; it is an expression of the traced paths of space occupied by movement.
Each of the pieces contains a variation on a nucleus represented by a brass central motif throughout each of the Orbitals, (not unlike the form of a planet or star and its orbiting companions), and the space rendered by fine brass and stainless-steel wires that occupy the distance between the nucleus and the wearer.
The Orbitals are volumes of energized wires moving through the void, illuminating the space in between.
Orbital 3a - Fusion | Copper, bronze, and brass. H 2.5 x W 2.5 x D 1.5 in.
Orbital 3b - Fission | Copper, bronze, and brass. H 3 x W 3 x D 1.5 in.
Eliza Smalley wearing Orbital VI | Brass and stainless steel. H 12 x W 12 x D 12 in.
Close up of Orbital VII | Brass, copper, MDF, and stainless steel. H 14 x W 14 x D 14 in. from
Down the Gravity Well snow sequence, courtesy of Max Loundenslager.
Orbital V - Heartbeats | Stainless steel and brass. H 13 x W 18 x D 16 in.
Orbital IV - Catalyst | Bronze, stainless steel, and brass. H 6 x W 5 x D 5 in.
Orbital VIII: Between Two Lungs | Stainless steel and brass.
Emzi Alander and Luke Williams in Orbital VIII - Between Two Lungs
Jewelry is often a personal, individual experience, however in reality it rarely is. Jewelry is never in a vacuum. It engages in all aspects, through interaction, adornment and sentiment that connects all intentions of the piece.
When displaying this work, people are naturally absent (unless models are hired to stand in a gallery or on the runway). So how does one communicate these interactions when the wearer is not present?
By placing people within the work using video, they act as more than models or photographs alone, they create an empathetic experience that provides a context that the film is able to reproduce through a series of animated scenarios that dances around themes of connection and longing and speaks to a sensation that sustains itself even within the void it is filmed in.
Installation of Orbitals in the DI Hub Blank_Lab
Passages
Passages
The lens is a concept that is used to describe the manner in which the viewer is transported to the macroscopic and microscopice plcces that the work is derived from.
Through the lens, frames of images, bring life to animated wires.
Through the lens, one follows The Anomaly along in its exploration between space and time.
I find a kind of solace in this piece. In it, I see what is, what once was, and what is to come. The golden path that is laid out, frayed, dissected and all before our eyes, illustrates that even the set path is unset. That our lives move in parallel and our decisions and destinations entangled.
As a fragment, a photograph a still in time, it is simultaneously made and unmade.
The sheer scale of the dual space installation mirrors the weight and scope of the universe as it is felt at both the macro and micro level, creating a space where people outside of the wearer may confront the same intangible forces. There is a hardness, a muscularity that is exploited; the physicality of metal and object is paired with the concrete precision ideal within physics in a shared interest in capturing, depicting, and materializing the ephemerality of space and the forces that interlink the bodies within the void. To understand this body of work, is to feel it draped over oneself. To know it is to see it come alive - not just as a static presentation in a gallery, but energized and activated in another dimension, just out of reach and hidden to the naked eye.
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