Walking the Gray Area

Hello, Sebastián!

Here I am …

I came to think about beginnings.  About the resurrection of the objects. Currently it says  “recycling”…

Transformations.

An arbitrary molecule remodeling…

Hi Dani!!!

Recycling and rebirth both sound very good and I am into that (especially your rebirth through fire).  We should use that for our piece (which perhaps we should start soon-ish).  I am making some new work now and I am recycling some old jewellery I made, also a kind of rebirth through recycling.  I love that.  There is too much waste everywhere and it makes me sad to see the precious Earth scattered with the incidental product of pointless mass consumerism and consumption….

What do you think????

Hi, Sebastián!

This is the box that I sent to you today…

Your photo is so beautiful…

Yes! I agree with you  about the idea of recycling – ideas, objects and feelings…

How do we insert this in the context proposed by the WGA ( “This is a blog where 40 artists and jewellery makers from Latin American and Europe carry out a dialogue about global mobility, identities and contemporary jewellery.”)?

Um abraço!

Dani

Hi.

Thanks for the box in advance, I look forward to receiving it!  I will let you know when it has arrived.  I know that there are themes going on here, but I feel that I would like to work with you on something that matters to us,  something that is meaningful, if you see what I mean.  We are global (mobility is part of our lives, so whatever we do, make, say, think, etc, probably contains a good degree of this already, whether we are aware or not).  We all have identities (unfortunately, as I am learning).  And we make jewellery!  There are probably a million ways to integrate this, but I want fire and exuberance burning inside of me to ignite my creative exploration within this project……

I will be in London until next week, so maybe we can do some thinking/sketching/etc…..until then, all the best….B Y E

Hi Sebastián!

Do you have some starting point?

a+b

D.S. 2009

I did these “drawings” with my hair and some material found on the street … recycling …

Hi Dani.

Now I am back.  A quick business trip to London and now I am back with a dark blue thumb nail.  But I needed that, I mean the trip.

I thought a little bit about our ideas and I very much like the rebirth by fire that you posted last week.  There is something about fire that fascinates me, which at the same time is a very important part of jewellery and goldsmithing.  But fire also makes me think about transformation, energy, the stepping from one form into another, death and cremation.  The gray area that (experimental) jewellery finds itself in is also a platform for rebirth, I think, where traditions no longer fit and new ideas are continuously given birth to.

Recycling is another point.  And even though I think that the word ‘recycling’ is somewhat cheesy and guilt-inspiring (if you don’t recycle), I have broken the word down into re and cycle and that lit up my mind.  Everything happens in cycles, stages and steps.  I feel that a lot what we have blogged about as to do with these things.  I also feel that I am somehow at the end of one cycle now, and another is beginning.  Again, relating this to jewellery, a lot of precious metals are recycled (I just sold some gold the other day because I needed money and I was also thinking about ancient Egypt, where grave robbers kept on taking the gold out of the tombs to resell it).

So these are only some overall concepts.  No ideas yet, but I could begin some experiments based on this.  The question is, do these ideas inspire you to work?  Do you feel that you can/want to work with this?

Hi Sebastián!

I like fire:

It’s passion

It’s red

It’s ephemeral

I like to make experiments with casting. melting and giving the metal a shape that most times i cannot control.

Do you have any idea?

Weak lines and simplicity…

Hi!

Nice pics and thoughts on fiery work (you are a creative ball of fire).  I am not sure what to do, make, think exactly.  I think I will start soon (I always say this and I mean it, yet I do not work on creative things a lot anymore.  It is like a wall exists between me and creativity and I somehow need to respect that dull-large-stagnant-energy-block).  But I like fire, it feels appropriate and suitable.  Maybe I will start with burning things I do not like to transform them and to see what happens!

…..

I love the first image you posted under ‘how to make fire’.  I love the prehistoric tools, things, stones, rocks, objects (all filled with purpose with the benefit of making fire).  Makes me wonder if we could make jewellery that can actually be utilized to make fire, but in the wrapped prehistoric kind of way, instead of a matchbox and match necklace, even though that would work too….

Hello Sebastián!

I found this images on the web and I thought you might like them. These  are viking lighters. Unfortunately I don’t  have more information about them.

I’ve had a lot of ideas and I’ll send you tomorrow some drafts of what I’d like to make. We’ll look for a contact point between our objects and thoughts to produce a first spark.

I’m particularly interested in objects that create comunication with others persons, that provoke interactivity and have a symbolic sense. There are not often jewel that you can use for gala night…

I have sought inspiration in Lampião and Maria Bonita, a very famous couple of brazilian bandits ( in the tradition of R0bin of Sherwood)

Look what I found on the web…

( a Glauber Rocha film)

About Lampião and Maria Bonita

( a Benjamin Abrahão film, 1936)

A demain!

Dani

The Xiuhmolpilli or Ceremony of the New Fire was a ritual performed the last day of every cycle of the Aztec calendar (52 years) to save the world from destruction. All fires in the Aztec realm were put out and everyone looked towards the summit of the Huixachtla volcano, where priests from the fire cult of Huehueteotl sacrificed a man, placing a firedrill on his chest; the resulting bonfire marked the New Calendar Round.  Torches were carried then from the bonfires to the temples in Tenochtitlan and a new Cycle would start with the certainty that the world was safe. The last ceremony of the New Fire was performed in 1507, when became forbidden by the Spanish conquerors.

Huehueteotl, or Old God in Nahuatl,  a mesoamerican deity figuring in the pantheons of pre-columbian cultures and associated to fire, was portrayed by the Aztecs as a very old man, hunched over with a wrinkled face and a toothless mouth, who carries a large brazier over his head.

Hi Sebastián!

Even though we do different things we have many points in common…So, let’s play a little!

Lygia Clark

Deep’s masks, 1968