So hi there! I make jewelry, that's what I do but it's not all I do. See, about once a year in the summertime I get an offer to be in a group show and I always say yes because, phhf! The deadline is so so far away. This brings us to last week when I realized the deadline was, like, NOW. Oops? Okay, so time to make art, and in this case, small art. Small like, 3x3. Small art is really good for me because I work small anyway and I'm comfortable with it. This is why I picked jewelry and metalsmithing as my major and not sculpture. For some reason, at VCU Sculpture Dept = Big Art and I am just so not down with that.
Anyway, what I make is tiny little collage box things with found objects. I have a huge bin full of random bits - vintage photographs, rusty bits of metal, old stamps, rocks, shells, mica, wooden boxes, keys, that kind of stuff.
My first step is to sort through all that foolishness and find a few bits that I really like, though sometimes I will start with a photograph and then create a bit of a story around it. It's kind of like putting a puzzle together without knowing what the finished picture is supposed to be. (Also, the pieces don't always fit together, but that's what pliers are for.)
Blah blah blah, am I still talking? Sorry, I did actually document this process with photos so maybe I'll stop boring you and start posting images.
It's important to start with a really messy work space:
See, totally not kidding about the mess:
Then I start messing around with my bits and seeing what goes where. I already had a 3x3" box and a sassy photo of my grandmother that I wanted to use:
Here's the layout I decided to go with. The photo, a bit of handwritten note from the back of another vintage photo, a small key, a stamp, some brass sheet metal, and mica:
I added a cool bit of rusty found metal to frame it. I was pretty settled with this layout but hadn't yet discovered there was no good way to glue the key down on top of mica:
I added a copper nail inside to hold the key. I decided I didn't like the top piece of mica - it concealed too much:
So, away it went. Here's the finished product:
Here's the back:
And another photo:
