Skip to content

Sea..Spoon??..Sculpture??

 

Statement: I work in sculpture and jewellery- the techniques, materials, aesthetics, and concepts I use always play back and forth amongst these two areas of my work. There’s a lot of discussion in the art world surrounding what differentiates craft (ex. Jewellery) and fine art (ex. Sculpture), and one of these is the idea of functionality. A lot of people describe my sculpture as craft-like and my jewellery as sculptural. I don’t mind being in that in-between world, and wanted to create a piece that borders back and forth along that line of “jewellery” and “sculpture”. I found out last semester that I really enjoy making spoons so I figured, “Why not make a ridiculous spoon? One that can stand as a sculpture but too closely resembles a spoon to be a sculpture, and one that people are hesitant to touch despite a utensil existing for the purpose of function”. 

I aimed for this through the materials and processes of creating. I used silver as it is used in the field of jewellery, a handle carved from marble that acts as the “plinth” of the piece- something soft and comfortable in your hand which you’re scared to touch (which is what the plinth/gallery setting does), also because marble is a crucial material in the history of sculpture, glass beads I made, found pieces of coral and sea aluminum (which I believe to be overflow from sand casting; another sculpture thing), and scrap pieces of silver I’ve saved from casting in the jewellery studio which I remelted down into an ingot which I then rolled out multiple times to saw out a spoon shape and use holloware techniques to give it dimension. (Quick summary of techniques used: casting, lampwork, wire wrapping, beading, soldering, metalsmithing, carving) 

Aesthetically I wanted to create something playful/whimsical and took my inspiration from the sea- using colours, texture, found materials, and movement that is reminiscent of it, because I think water encapsulates fluidity- both in the way that the universe operates as well as how our notions of our reality change dependent on our perspective. So is this a spoon or a sculpture? Both? Neither? I’m not sure.

Material: silver, lamp work beads, carved marble, found coral, found sea aluminum 

Dimensions: approx: 3 in x 3 in x 14 in

Date: January-March 2022