Lisa Walker: Environmental Adventure:
Lisa’s initial instruction before the workshop was to ‘Collect stuff you hate and you like’. We were told to not to think about jewellery, ‘… just to collect and obsess.’ Before the workshop had even started, I felt a little out of my comfort zone. I already collect what some would describe as rubbish, but to collect items that I don’t like was a concept that was foreign to me. I forced myself to pick up a number of pieces that I would normally not pick up from the roadside. I was glad that I had - I found myself deconstructing the broken sprinkler heads and plastic shards from cars, and it was these parts that made up some of my favourite pieces. It initially took me some time to learn how to ‘play’ with material, as I was used to doing a lot of research and planning before making, but once I learnt how to ‘cut loose’, I had a lot of fun. There are pieces that I made that have gone on to help me in my understanding of my own aesthetic.
I did not think about the piece of jewellery that these objects would become as I constructed them. I was interested to ask Lisa whether she always knew what her pieces would become as she worked on them. She told me that she did about half the time, and that the other half, she focused on the piece as an object, then how it would be worn.
It was insightful to see the type of collections that other jewellers brought to the workshop. Also to see the ways in which everyone grouped their own ‘rubbish’ together, colour coded bags of plastic, jars of toys and shoeboxes of hardware found at the back of the shed. It was even more interesting to see the numerous ways in which these collections were put together. The methods used for joining pieces together in the workshop with Lisa were stitch, binding with wire, and glue. I was most excited about the glue, as it is something we are taught to steer away from. The glue gave me great freedom with the materials I was using and allowed me to explore ideas more quickly than if I was working in a ‘conventional’ jewellery way.
By using materials that I had not invested a lot in, or felt a deep connection to allowed me to think outside the box, and again gave me a confidence in what I was working on – knowing that if my idea did not work, I could turn it into something else, rework it, or throw it back into the bin from where it had initially come from with out any guilt. Working like this has also has given me an understanding of the placement and combination of form, that I can use when working on more ‘precious’ pieces. Knowing that Lisa combines precious materials like gold with ‘found’ object, I was interested to ask her how she overcomes this idea of ‘preciousness’. She told me that she has come to accept that all materials have associations and histories attached to them. Lisa likened gold’s long history and uses to a Barbie doll’s head - both are loaded materials. The notion of Barbie represents and symbolises so many different ideas, as does gold.
Towards the end of the three-day workshop there was an opportunity for us to lay out everything that we had made and have time to discuss it with one and other, and get feedback from Lisa. I found it really inspiring to see everybody else’s approach. Lisa was very supportive. I was so pleased to hear that she thought I had an eye for working with ‘found’ material. She told me that usually when she sees someone working on the scale that I was, which was considerably smaller than everybody else’s, she feels she needs to tell them to work bigger. But she went on to say that this was not the case with my work - it worked. This positive feedback from the Lisa and the group has given me confidence in the work I do at university, and a greater understanding the direction I want my work to take.
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