New brooch series, new work for Spring

A new brooch series made from pieces of a tin can for Regart, centre d’artistes en art actuel

I have been very busy this Spring. I have been slowly working on a new series using pastel colours and different forms. After working with wire for the past couple of years I wanted to do something a little different.

I am taking part in a jewellery exchange. I have already received my brooch fro Miriam Arentz and sent her her’s. I played with new forms and colours, using beading and a variety of cold connections.

At the same time I was working on a series of brooches for an ‘encann’ at Regart, an artist run center in Lévis. They give you a can (a play on words with the encanne, which means auction) which you can fill up or use as a piece of art. The cans were all auctioned off last week.

I can’t share my pieces from the jewellery exchange but can show what I made or Regart plus the process.

I started with the can. I decided to cut pieces into the can then incorporate them in the brooches I was going to make. I knew I would be sewing the brooches together so I drilled holes around the empty spaces and used embroidery thread to fill them in.

I coated the thread with paraloid, a plastic that is mixed with acetone to create a liquid which can be painted on. It will soak into a porous material, when the acetone evaporates it leaves behing the paraloid essentially plastifying the material. Then I spray painted the can white.

I kind of wish I had left it there, but I felt like it was too simple and wanted to add some ‘jewellery’ details. I added gold leaf and pearls for the final product. I am not one hundred percent happy with it, but I didn’t have that much time to complete it (I had a lot in my schedule) and I feel like it was okay.

For the brooches I tried a lot of things. I started by drawing a lot of pictures, and finally settled on using simple geometric forms. I started by using paper to mock up certain forms together. I also practiced some sewing.

I knew what four colours I was going to concentrate on, I also knew I would be using white as a background colour. I cut a bunch of shapes our of copper sheet and powdercoated them.

I was experimenting a lot with beading on the metal, in particular on the can. I decided not use  it for this piece but, I did do some samples and am using it in another piece which is coming up.

I really love the assempbly of these brooches. put toegether the geometric forms which I powdercoated, when I find a group that I find pleasing I temporarily glue them together then drill holes and sew. The brooch mechanism is on a back plate which I attached with tiny machine screws. The shape for the backplate I decide after the first form is sewn together. Everything is built very intuitively, it is layered up without much forethought.

I am really happy with the final result. I find them playful and fun to make.

The form comes originally from an idea of imaginary landscapes. I have been drawing colourful paysages that I have been keeping formally very simple. They are basically hills and valleys in flat colours. I keep coming back to the idea of imaginary landscapes and worlds, it is a theme I have worked with a bit before with installations, but in context of a relationship with a specific place. I have been exploring the idea of entirely imagined spaces as a place to escape to or hide. In my mind this theme is slowly tying into the symbols of frames and cages which I have been working with, but I am still working out the direct links and how to articulate the way the cage and the frame represent the same thing and an imagined landscape is the opposite.