I have been busy working on my final degree show project as well as interviews with masters opportunities and sorting a place to live for the next few years!
I am ecstatic in reporting that i am moving onto a masters degree in Design in September which is a really exciting opportunity to develop my sustainable practice!
With sustainability in mind, i have been responding to my material choices and to maintain the honest, open approach i have to my work i thought i would share my responses with you.
I have been working with metal throughout the 3 years of my degree looking at different methods of manipulating sheet to create 3d objects. Honestly the appeal was in the traditional connections that originated with working in metal. These connections allowed for my work to remain solidly within the wearable jewellery market however it has become paramount that my work reflects my conceptual integrity, focusing more on reproduction and imitation of form and material qualities that accurately represent qualities found in my source material.
However the appeal of metal was in the reflective qualities and definitive finishes that can be achieved which could not be achieved in other less traditional materials such as ceramics or wood.
The issue with metal was the restrictive, monochrome, solid structure. Natural, organic forms particularly plant life have uncontrollable elements (or appear as uncontrolled and unpredictable but actually have integral structures and processes) which cannot be expressed coherently and authentically in metal particularly with my personal, ethical criteria.
The forced nature of my previous work has been the elements that have obstructed progress to precision, delicacy and fluidity in my work. This is due to the lack of patience and clarity in my own decisions about the use of material.
Nonetheless there are elements of metal, in this case eco-silver, which can be utilised effectively to portray successful elements of plant forms and structures without sacrificing quality and coherence.
Silver is the softest alloy and therefore allows for a lot more freedom and warping, particularly in processes such as reticulation, etching and forming. Elements of my inspiration (plant pods, plant transitions, journey of plant forms through processes) have visual connotations of strength, hardness, skeletal, clarity, safety and protection. These elements will be attempted to be represented and transmitted into silver wire forms and transient spheres for outer-shells of integral delicate textures and forms.
Porcelain paper clay
For me porcelain paper clay represents whiteness, blankness, transparency, illusion of transparency, organic, growth, development, journey, durability, robustness, transition, changeable, adaptable, flexible, delicate and sensitive.
These qualities are more directly relatable to elements found in my source material, organic plant forms. The other benefit of using porcelain paper clay as a main material in this project is its environmental impact is very low, in both material processes and sourcing. Porcelain is a natural material commonly found in the UK meaning that trading laws, ethical trade routes and ethical employment is less of an issue compared with mining conditions and protocols found in sourcing and producing metal.
The blankness of porcelain allows for every mark and alteration to be intensely adapted by the material, allowing for deeper transient forms, textures and structures to be built. This also allows for the possibility of glazing after high firing which introduces the idea of layering, colour and contrast creation through shadow and light.
The processes used in porcelain form making also allows for stages of change that can be recorded in order to document the journey of the material through each process. This Is another direct correlation with my inspiration material and allows for my pieces to closely relate to their natural inspiration, the separation from nature is not so distant as that of metal representations and imitations.
Tagua Nuts
Tagua is known as vegetable ivory and holds the same material working qualities as ivory such as hardness, colour and opaqueness. This material is sourced from outside the UK coming from tropical rainforests in regions such as peru.
The tagua nut is the ethical alternative to otherwise destructive, unethical and unsustainable elephant ivory which causes thousands of unnecessary deaths each year. Tagua has great potential in this project with the use of texture creation, structure imitation and glazing techniques. Through this I can illuminate surface texture using buff polishing and natural dyes.
The direct use of organic material means that my work maintains sustainable, environmental and natural integrity whilst maintaining the qualities I want to communicate visually in my work. The use of slices and cuts of tagua allows for different shapes, forms and textures to represent the different transient and ephemeral forms found in my source material.
These pieces in tagua can then be combined with other materials such as porcelain or bio resin, contained within structural transient spheres to represent outside pod forms and internal seeds, communicating the journey of the plant through different materials and different visuals.
