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.