Melanie Bilenker

SUNDAY NIGHT

Locket (2007)
1 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 3/8" (locket), 20" (chain)
3.2 x 3.2 x .9cm (locket), 51cm (chain)

Materials: Gold, ebony, resin, pigment, hair
(Photo: K. Sprague)

Melanie Bilenker creates what I like to think of as a modern version of Victorian memento jewellery. Using hair, she recreates moments in time and sets them in resin. She states on her website:

The Victorians kept lockets of hair and miniature portraits painted with ground hair and pigment to secure the memory of a lost love. In much the same way, I secure my memories through photographic images rendered in lines of my own hair, the physical remnants. I do not reproduce events, but quiet minutes, the mundane, the domestic, the ordinary moments.

While her work with hair is amazing, I am more interested in her take on the locket. I really enjoy their simplicity, and the idea of a moment or memory remaining private and hidden.

'Matter Matters'

For my Art Minor unit, we have been given the theme that Matter Matters. I hope to look into the idea of memory and nostalgia - how our senses can trigger off a particular memory. Specifically, how a particular item of clothing can bring back a event, time and place. At the moment I'm experimenting with etching the pattern of fabric onto metal - above are some of the patterns I hope to transfer.

Lisa Walker

I am over the moon! I came home today to find a letter from the Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia (JMGA) saying that my application to participate in a three day workshop with one of my favourite jewellers, Lisa Walker had been successful! The biennial conference had offered grants for one TAFE student, and one Curtin student to attend some of the workshops on offer:

LISA WALKER

• Curtin University, 6, 7, 8 April, 2010.

The workshop will be an investigation into the materials we have in our environment, and the potential these materials have to be made into jewellery. I will be encouraging individual interpretation of the workshops concept, meeting regularly in groups to discuss progress.

At least 3-4 weeks before the workshop the students will need to start collecting materials. They may find them on the street, in the rubbish, at the pub, at their part time jobs, they might buy some things from their favourite shops, there might be materials around the art school, or they may already have a collection at home. It's very important that each person collect a good LARGE pile by the time they start the workshop. I would hope they get obsessed with collecting, and that some great, interesting things turn up.

Shall keep you posted!

Coon & Goon

Last friday was the opening of 'New Works New Faces' at Gallery East and Perth Galleries. I was excited to see that of the fourteen graduates shown in the exhibition, five were from jewellery design at Curtin. I urge you all to pay the galleries (and Sebastian the gallery dog at) a visit. It is also a good excuse to have a tipple at the delightful Mrs Brown's. The show runs till the first of April.

Studio

Here is my little space in the jewellery studio at Curtin. It yet to be used. Made the mistake of op-shopping in my break between classes today. I now own three more doilies.