The jewellery scene in Chile has been growing strongly in recent years. A large number of new outlets for art and designer jewellery have opened in Santiago, including work that draws from distinctively Chilean forms, such as the horse-hair weaving known as crin.
At the end of 2009, Chile held its first national jewellery competition. Organised [...]
Crin is one of Chile’s most distinctive folk crafts. In markets around the country you will find delicate forms, often taking the shape of insects, woven out of dyed horsehair. Despite its distribution around the country, almost all Crin originates from a small town called Rari.
Crin appeared mysteriously around 200 years ago, as local women [...]
The jewellery scene in South Africa has kept a very low profile. Perhaps here’s why.
Three jewellers from Johannesburg have an exhibition at Bell Roberts Gallery titled Tales from the Mantelpiece. Philippe Bousquet, originally an architect, works with family identity as a link between vintage objects. Geraldine Fenn, with a background in archeology and art history, [...]
I was at the Selling Yarns market in the National Museum, chatting with Valerie Kirk, head of textiles at the Canberra School of Art. I noticed she had some string tied around her wrist. At first I thought it was some practical material related to a workshop she was assisting on the day. But [...]
It’s always enlivening when Damian Skinner comes to town. We gave at talk together at RMIT in the unusual setting of Hoyts Cinema 7 in Melbourne Central. It was disconcerting to see the students and jewellers lying back in their comfy seats as though waiting for a blockbuster.
Damian began with his reading of [...]
It’s always enlivening when Damian Skinner comes to town. We gave at talk together at RMIT in the unusual setting of Hoyts Cinema 7 in Melbourne Central. It was disconcerting to see the students and jewellers lying back in their comfy seats as though waiting for a blockbuster.
Damian began with his reading of the [...]
The Americans have a love of coining new phrases. To antipodean ears, they can seem verbal gadgets, eagerly assembled for momentary pleasure. The term ‘prosumerism’ is a combination of consumer and producer. Bringing them together seems a ‘neat’ way of having best of both worlds – continuing the pleasures of shopping while assuming the authority [...]
Non-western jewellery provides intriguing possibilities for contemporary ornament. In 1920, the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski published an account of an elaborate jewellery trading network in eastern New Guinea, known as Kula.
Kula entails the exchange of two different sets of ornament. In a clockwise direction, long necklaces of red spondylus shell (soulava) travel from villages [...]
South African craft is characterised by an abundance of beaded products. One of the most charming is the Zulu Love Letter, which according to legend developed when Zulu men began working in the mines. As they were illiterate, communication from sweethearts back in home took for the form of ornament, where particular coloured beads signified [...]
A scene from November 2005, when the rise of the stock market seemed as endless as the war on terror.
Below is a copy of the speech I made for the opening of the graduation show of RMIT Gold & Silversmithing 2008. [...]
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