This week special guest speaker, Fran Allison talked about her experience in collaboration and her background practice as a Jeweler. The born Christchurch artist went to Middlesex University before graduating with a Masters degree at the Royal College of Arts in London. Her area of expertise graduallyexpanded as her early years as a silversmith to aluminum to contemporary jewelry. Her artworks changed throughout the years, materials and scale to be precise, from metal/aluminum objects to contemporary brooches and handkerchiefs and badges.
Allison in the last few years has glued herself with contemporary jewelry and her work reference the fashion industry with her 1999 series "The Dress". Her idea behind the work was attraction and attention towards the body through her flowery painted stainless steel mesh on the girl hair. The scale and color helps her achieve her idea. Allison who lives in Auckland has always adorned and became interested in Pacific Island fashion. Polynesian floral headbands, Samoan Sei and Taualuga Tekiteki are some of her influences and response with her "The dress" series work that directly connected with Polynesian fashion and style.
The "Weeds" collaborative group formed in 2005 with Allison herself, Lisa Walker, Andrea Daly and Shelley Norton has really pushed and expanded both herself and her piers knowledge and practice. Allison said that the group have become a platform for experimentation and influential in her practice. One thing she said that got my attention was "artwork is created on top of a pre-existing work". Allison work in 2005, at the second "weeds" outing in Wellington at the Quoil Contemporary Jewelry gallery were the four traditional card shapes depiction of Spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds constructed into pieces of brooches.
She remade the forms she constructed on the king of hearts card but decorated and pushed it further with a few fabric materials and jewelry to give it more lively color and presence.
Thanks Faafeu,
ReplyDeleteI like how you chose to respond to Fran's interest in Pacific adornment. I am curious though what you thought about collaboration, and maybe even Will's interest in the artist run space.
However, you have done ten entries now, you can relax!
TX