Accessing Art with Rina Hanowski
Studio visit with Regina artist Melody Armstrong
https://youtu.be/DZXehuaErlE
#AccessNow
Neiko made some guest appearances!
Studio visit with Regina artist Melody Armstrong
https://youtu.be/DZXehuaErlE
#AccessNow
Neiko made some guest appearances!
MELODY ARMSTRONG -
SASKATCHEWAN FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
ARTISTS AWARDS
November 16, 2016
CURATORIAL REVIEW – TRANSCRIBED FROM LIVE INTERVIEW - Mary Lynn Podiluk
"Contemporary Jewellery by Melody Armstrong" at the Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery
September 12, 2015
“My name is Mary Lynn Podiluk I am a Saskatoon based Art Jeweller and Goldsmith and I have had a studio practice here in Saskatoon since 2012 when I returned from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I graduated at NASCAD University with a degree in Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing.
Here I am the curator for this lovely exhibition of Melody Armstrong's “Contemporary Jewellery” and she asked me to take on this role and it was a great opportunity.
I have been familiar with Melody’s work for a little while. When I was still living in Halifax I had decided to look at who in Saskatchewan might be a practicing art jeweller or someone who was making contemporary jewellery because I had decided to move back and her name popped up a lot. I could definitely tell when I was looking into it that she had been or is one of the pioneers in the art jewellery field here in Saskatchewan and I was eager to meet her, which I had the opportunity to do last spring. I visited the Neil Balkwill Centre for a little brief period and she just happened to be teaching a class. And so we got to introduce ourselves to each other and kind of start a dialogue between each other about our practice and our work, and later on in the year last late summer we got to spend a lot of time together at the Emma International Collaboration at the Ness Creek Festival site and yeah we got to make jewellery outside together for a good portion of the week which was a blast.
Melody and I speak a very similar vocabulary because we have a similar background, we are working in the same field, so there was never really a point where what I was talking about was unclear to her or vice versa and in that regard we were able to discuss the technical side of things, the technical side of making and those processes that she was really pushing herself to explore and I urged her to push it further, you know, consider how the metal would move this way or consider what if you bent it this way or this way and so as a curator I kind of tried to help her think about these processes and when it came time to work on her statement it was really fun to give her feedback on how she wanted to articulate what this body of work was about, the processes the materials the aesthetic and together when installing the work in the gallery space it was fun to have that back-and-forth about which pieces looked suitable together in certain cases and really highlighting that process I was talking about prior to show, the progression of the technical ways that the pieces developed and their appearances and aesthetics.
This exhibition of Melody's work can really show the focus that she had with making the work. She definitely was looking to expand her technical repertoire and so she experimented a lot during the making process and I think it's very interesting that I can see that progression and I really invite viewers to look for that as well because it kind of dives into the making process and how all of these pieces are hand fabricated. It highlights the constructive and very deliberate nature of her work and from that you can really see a lot of repeating elements whether there obvious or not necessarily obvious they might be a little more subtle such as like her handmade chain, each and every chain is hand fabricated, none of this is factory produced. To further elaborate on the detailing of each chain I think it's important to point out some of these small nuances that show up differently per chain. Here you might look at the piece and think well that is a standard cable chain with inter-connecting links, however if you look more closely every other jump ring has a unique characteristic and that it's not just simply joined but rather there's two small little balls that create the jump ring and I think that this is really distinct in Melody’s work that she really focuses on this chain making. Here's another example of a chain that is different than the previous and that it emphasizes the slightly more geometric element.
In this piece here we are looking at a more pentagon shape and you can see that it is indeed flexible which makes it chain like but you wouldn't see this sort of chain on any piece of jewellery. This is truly a unique one of a kind chain that creates this piece as a whole. It's not simply a chain that a pendant hangs on, it becomes kind of part of the work itself and highlights kind of the elaborate nature of jewellery making. With this piece the viewer may question well how do I put it on, it doesn't quite fit over the head. It has what is called a box catch, which is fairly labour-intensive to fabricate by hand. Here you just simply push the small button and it releases a spring mechanism on the inside that keeps the piece together and what I like is that instead of the catch being in the back of the piece which is normal, she has actually made the catch become the focal point of the piece.
Art Jewellery might not be a term people around here are familiar with, it's also tricky to describe or define because it doesn't have the centuries of tradition that certain fine craft or fine art may have, but that's not to say it's not relevant. About 60 or 70 years ago there was a movement that emerged with postwar prosperity throughout Europe and the United States and from there there's been a few other sub genres, so Art Jewellery would be like the umbrella term for Contemporary Jewellery, which is what you see here today. Modern Jewellery or Studio Jewellery might be other terms that we have heard, all of those they're not the same thing as like Fine Jewellery or Fashion Jewellery, which are more about making a fashion statement or a personal statement or even becoming more of a status symbol. One might describe Art Jewellery to be a critique on the precious nature of jewellery itself, kind of liberating it from the restrictive nature of value through use of alternative materials, not necessarily only alternative materials but juxtaposing the alternative materials against those precious materials, it allows the viewer to consider what could be precious not necessarily that inherent value but thinking about the conceptual value of the work, it really focuses on emphasizing innovation and experimentation and expression of the artist rather than just being a piece of adornment. These pieces demonstrate how Melody really started with an initial concept and proceeded to have another piece that could follow easily from it through the techniques she employed. So in the case of this neckpiece here you can see there is a negative space within each link and what she's done is then taken those pieces and created this piece from them, and this might not be initially apparent to the viewer because she's also repeated them to create a slightly more organic form and I think that's really interesting to highlight how her process developed in this body of work. This piece features an interesting clasp as well and it's not obvious at first but this pin here is a slightly longer pin and it pushes out and allows the two ends to come apart and each of these little mechanisms feature little gemstones on the tip which is fun.
One might say that Art Jewellery has the tradition of being nontraditional through the context of using these alternative materials and being conceptual or challenging the viewer and challenging the wearer in a way that is non traditional. Here in Saskatchewan we don't see much Art Jewellery, there aren't many makers who are specifically focusing on Art Jewellery or making Contemporary Jewellery and it's really nice to see this exhibition space full of such work and I hope that in this light we start to have more focus and start to educate people on how this jewellery is different from the jewellery you might see elsewhere throughout the province that is simply for adornment rather than specifically making these artistic statements and explorations and focusing on work that is handmade.
Melody had a definite aesthetic that she was going for when developing this body of work. It was really informed by the materials however and through the materials and through working with metal with her hands, she came to making these beautiful pieces of contemporary jewellery that are bold and daring and kind of they don't compromise for tradition that one might expect and together like seeing all the work here it's lovely to again see that progression and to view the work in a gallery space like seeing the work in cases and under plinths, it might be equally as rewarding as putting on a piece of jewellery for the first time and in that sense I mean it like when you put on a piece of jewellery there might be something about it that you overlooked or didn't think about and in the gallery the work is isolated from the body and therefore it allows you to look at the work closer, you're not getting up in someone's personal space like oh let me see those earrings, so you can definitely get up close and look at those details which I really urge people to do. And again looking and thinking about Art Jewellery, it's also important to consider that again they do look amazing on the body, the body is the canvas in this case and I think it's interesting to appreciate those things.” Mary Lynn Podiluk
SASKATCHEWAN FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
ARTISTS AWARDS
November 16, 2016
CURATORIAL REVIEW – TRANSCRIBED FROM LIVE INTERVIEW - Mary Lynn Podiluk
"Contemporary Jewellery by Melody Armstrong" at the Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery
September 12, 2015
“My name is Mary Lynn Podiluk I am a Saskatoon based Art Jeweller and Goldsmith and I have had a studio practice here in Saskatoon since 2012 when I returned from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I graduated at NASCAD University with a degree in Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing.
Here I am the curator for this lovely exhibition of Melody Armstrong's “Contemporary Jewellery” and she asked me to take on this role and it was a great opportunity.
I have been familiar with Melody’s work for a little while. When I was still living in Halifax I had decided to look at who in Saskatchewan might be a practicing art jeweller or someone who was making contemporary jewellery because I had decided to move back and her name popped up a lot. I could definitely tell when I was looking into it that she had been or is one of the pioneers in the art jewellery field here in Saskatchewan and I was eager to meet her, which I had the opportunity to do last spring. I visited the Neil Balkwill Centre for a little brief period and she just happened to be teaching a class. And so we got to introduce ourselves to each other and kind of start a dialogue between each other about our practice and our work, and later on in the year last late summer we got to spend a lot of time together at the Emma International Collaboration at the Ness Creek Festival site and yeah we got to make jewellery outside together for a good portion of the week which was a blast.
Melody and I speak a very similar vocabulary because we have a similar background, we are working in the same field, so there was never really a point where what I was talking about was unclear to her or vice versa and in that regard we were able to discuss the technical side of things, the technical side of making and those processes that she was really pushing herself to explore and I urged her to push it further, you know, consider how the metal would move this way or consider what if you bent it this way or this way and so as a curator I kind of tried to help her think about these processes and when it came time to work on her statement it was really fun to give her feedback on how she wanted to articulate what this body of work was about, the processes the materials the aesthetic and together when installing the work in the gallery space it was fun to have that back-and-forth about which pieces looked suitable together in certain cases and really highlighting that process I was talking about prior to show, the progression of the technical ways that the pieces developed and their appearances and aesthetics.
This exhibition of Melody's work can really show the focus that she had with making the work. She definitely was looking to expand her technical repertoire and so she experimented a lot during the making process and I think it's very interesting that I can see that progression and I really invite viewers to look for that as well because it kind of dives into the making process and how all of these pieces are hand fabricated. It highlights the constructive and very deliberate nature of her work and from that you can really see a lot of repeating elements whether there obvious or not necessarily obvious they might be a little more subtle such as like her handmade chain, each and every chain is hand fabricated, none of this is factory produced. To further elaborate on the detailing of each chain I think it's important to point out some of these small nuances that show up differently per chain. Here you might look at the piece and think well that is a standard cable chain with inter-connecting links, however if you look more closely every other jump ring has a unique characteristic and that it's not just simply joined but rather there's two small little balls that create the jump ring and I think that this is really distinct in Melody’s work that she really focuses on this chain making. Here's another example of a chain that is different than the previous and that it emphasizes the slightly more geometric element.
In this piece here we are looking at a more pentagon shape and you can see that it is indeed flexible which makes it chain like but you wouldn't see this sort of chain on any piece of jewellery. This is truly a unique one of a kind chain that creates this piece as a whole. It's not simply a chain that a pendant hangs on, it becomes kind of part of the work itself and highlights kind of the elaborate nature of jewellery making. With this piece the viewer may question well how do I put it on, it doesn't quite fit over the head. It has what is called a box catch, which is fairly labour-intensive to fabricate by hand. Here you just simply push the small button and it releases a spring mechanism on the inside that keeps the piece together and what I like is that instead of the catch being in the back of the piece which is normal, she has actually made the catch become the focal point of the piece.
Art Jewellery might not be a term people around here are familiar with, it's also tricky to describe or define because it doesn't have the centuries of tradition that certain fine craft or fine art may have, but that's not to say it's not relevant. About 60 or 70 years ago there was a movement that emerged with postwar prosperity throughout Europe and the United States and from there there's been a few other sub genres, so Art Jewellery would be like the umbrella term for Contemporary Jewellery, which is what you see here today. Modern Jewellery or Studio Jewellery might be other terms that we have heard, all of those they're not the same thing as like Fine Jewellery or Fashion Jewellery, which are more about making a fashion statement or a personal statement or even becoming more of a status symbol. One might describe Art Jewellery to be a critique on the precious nature of jewellery itself, kind of liberating it from the restrictive nature of value through use of alternative materials, not necessarily only alternative materials but juxtaposing the alternative materials against those precious materials, it allows the viewer to consider what could be precious not necessarily that inherent value but thinking about the conceptual value of the work, it really focuses on emphasizing innovation and experimentation and expression of the artist rather than just being a piece of adornment. These pieces demonstrate how Melody really started with an initial concept and proceeded to have another piece that could follow easily from it through the techniques she employed. So in the case of this neckpiece here you can see there is a negative space within each link and what she's done is then taken those pieces and created this piece from them, and this might not be initially apparent to the viewer because she's also repeated them to create a slightly more organic form and I think that's really interesting to highlight how her process developed in this body of work. This piece features an interesting clasp as well and it's not obvious at first but this pin here is a slightly longer pin and it pushes out and allows the two ends to come apart and each of these little mechanisms feature little gemstones on the tip which is fun.
One might say that Art Jewellery has the tradition of being nontraditional through the context of using these alternative materials and being conceptual or challenging the viewer and challenging the wearer in a way that is non traditional. Here in Saskatchewan we don't see much Art Jewellery, there aren't many makers who are specifically focusing on Art Jewellery or making Contemporary Jewellery and it's really nice to see this exhibition space full of such work and I hope that in this light we start to have more focus and start to educate people on how this jewellery is different from the jewellery you might see elsewhere throughout the province that is simply for adornment rather than specifically making these artistic statements and explorations and focusing on work that is handmade.
Melody had a definite aesthetic that she was going for when developing this body of work. It was really informed by the materials however and through the materials and through working with metal with her hands, she came to making these beautiful pieces of contemporary jewellery that are bold and daring and kind of they don't compromise for tradition that one might expect and together like seeing all the work here it's lovely to again see that progression and to view the work in a gallery space like seeing the work in cases and under plinths, it might be equally as rewarding as putting on a piece of jewellery for the first time and in that sense I mean it like when you put on a piece of jewellery there might be something about it that you overlooked or didn't think about and in the gallery the work is isolated from the body and therefore it allows you to look at the work closer, you're not getting up in someone's personal space like oh let me see those earrings, so you can definitely get up close and look at those details which I really urge people to do. And again looking and thinking about Art Jewellery, it's also important to consider that again they do look amazing on the body, the body is the canvas in this case and I think it's interesting to appreciate those things.” Mary Lynn Podiluk