Tag Archives: welcome

A Sumba welcome–by Fryza Pavitta

Sumbanese Contemporary Narrative Jewellery by Fryza Pavitta

Sumbanese Contemporary Narrative Jewellery by Fryza Pavitta

Fryza Pavitta is an Indonesian jewellery designer currently based in Jakarta. She was born in Samarinda, East Kalimantan. She studied Industrial Design at Bandung Institute of Technology, where she developed a number of jewellery pieces including Zapp, which was a knife turned into a necklace.

She also developed a work of ‘distributed jewellery’ titled Sumbanese Contemporary Narrative Jewellery. The work includes symbols from Sumba culture about mythological forces of earth and sky. According to Fryza:

For Sumbanese, the sky is filled with ‘star dust’, made from souls of ancestors that look down on the living, offering rain as a blessing. This is represented by the silver chain. The earth is a female figure, represented in the U shape of a bowl, filled by the rain. On this are various shapes including living creatures and the omega symbol of woman. Finally there is the level of the sea, which represents potential loss.

Women’s activity is particularly important in this mythology. The weaving of the tenun ikat is symbolic of the string that ties the earth and sky together.

The piece itself is strung together. Components can be detached. The piece is designed to be distributed among others.

Since graduating from Bandung, Fryza worked for several months in Geoti Studio, designing sculptural objects from an ashtray to a city park. With others, she has also shown work about the wedding ring and the hand gestures of a married couple.

Back in Jakarta, she now works for the industrial designer Leonard Theosabrata. She plans to continue with jewellery.

This work will feature in the Welcome Signs exhibition. It’s an interesting example of how the jewellery object can carry a story that connects people together. We can only imagine the very special situation in which it is used and the continuing connection that its owners will experience.

Katheryn Leopoldseder’s ‘For God so loved the world…’

Katheryn Leopoldseder ' For God so loved the world...(70 x 7 Used, Disposable Communion Cup Necklace)' 490 recycled communion cups, fresh water pearls, 18ct gold, Gold plated sterling silver, stainless steel, 2008, 260cmL x 8cmW x 3cmH, photograph by Jeremy Dillon

Katheryn Leopoldseder ' For God so loved the world...(70 x 7 Used, Disposable Communion Cup Necklace)' 490 recycled communion cups, fresh water pearls, 18ct gold, Gold plated sterling silver, stainless steel, 2008, 260cmL x 8cmW x 3cmH, photograph by Jeremy Dillon

Katheryn Leopoldseder is a Melbourne jeweller who came through RMIT Gold & Silversmithing and now works at Abbotsford Convent, in a shared studio with Phoebe Porter.

While supplying e.g.etal with quality production jewellery, she has also managed to produce epic jewellery works for exhibition. In her six years since graduation, Leopoldseder has shown a capacity to wreak weighty themes from what might otherwise seem a purely ornamental medium like jewellery.

Her work is disarmingly ambivalent. She manages to express great beauty in what appears to be the wastefulness of much contemporary life. Recently she produced an elaborate pendant in the shape of lungs beautifully punctuated with white cigarette filters.

Her work for Welcome Signs is ‘For God so loved the world…’ It features 490 tiny plastic communion cups threaded in a necklace with pearls. Leopoldseder collected these cups from a church she attended, reflecting on the contradiction between the sacred ritual and its profane outcome. For her, it was…

an acknowledgement of how far we fall, that even within this most sacred and enduring of rituals we have somewhat missed the point. Morphing communion into a convenient, disposable, individual, sanitized and, I believe irresponsibly wasteful version of its former self.

The necklace is joined by a clasp in the shape of K’ruvim, as angels are known in the Hebrew story of the covenent. She quotes the Bible:

He (B’tzal’el) made the arc of pure gold,…. He made two k’ruvim of gold: he made them of hammered work for the two ends of the arc cover – one keruv for one end and one for the other end; he made the k’ruvim of one piece with the arc-cover at its two ends. the k’ruvim had their wings spread above, so that their wings covered the arc; their faces were toward each other and toward the arc cover. – Exodus 37: 6 – 9 Complete Jewish bible

Katheryn Leopoldseder ' For God so loved the world...(70 x 7 Used, Disposable Communion Cup Necklace)' 490 recycled communion cups, fresh water pearls, 18ct gold, Gold plated sterling silver, stainless steel, 2008, 260cmL x 8cmW x 3cmH, photograph by Jeremy Dillon

Katheryn Leopoldseder ' For God so loved the world...(70 x 7 Used, Disposable Communion Cup Necklace)' 490 recycled communion cups, fresh water pearls, 18ct gold, Gold plated sterling silver, stainless steel, 2008, 260cmL x 8cmW x 3cmH, photograph by Jeremy Dillon

The number 7 x 70 of cups corresponds with a later Biblical story:

Then Kefa came up and said to him (Jesus), “Rabbi, how often can my brother sin against me and I have to forgive him? As many as seven times?” “No, not seven times,” answered Yeshua, “but seventy times seven!” – Mathew 18:21-22 Complete Jewish Bible

An important element of this work is the way it leaves its references incomplete. Rather than the whole angel, only the wings feature on the clasp. And the title, engraved in the first cup, only hints at the complete quote:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.-John 3:16

It is quite unusual today to find jewellery based on religious meaning, despite the strong history of association. There’s a danger that it might limit the interest in the way to those of the same faith.

While ‘For God so loved the world…’ does certainly respond to particular Christian themes, I think it also has a broader appeal. The need to care for the planet has become a sacred cause in contemporary life, yet there is little formal structure to underpin this value. Is environmentalism a matter of enjoying our time on the planet a little longer, or does it rest on a deeper sense of ourselves as custodians of something greater? These are questions left unanswered by contemporary politics. While I don’t think this work provides an answer, it does ask the question.

In relation to Welcome Signs, Leopoldseder’s work engages with the history of the garlands as a ritual neckpiece that mark important occasions. While we might have taken for granted the abundance of nature in supplying the materials for these garlands, today we are alerted to the sacrifices that attend any celebration. Hers is a garland for our fraught times.

Welcome Signs – early notice

Var mala exchange of garlands at Indian wedding (photo by k♥money on Creative Commons license)

Var mala exchange of garlands at Indian wedding (photo by k♥money on Creative Commons license)

Var mala exchange of garlands at Indian wedding (photo by k♥money on Creative Commons license)

Early notice of an exhibition of jewellery from the Asia Pacific region

The World Craft Council are hosting a conference in New Delhi, 4-6 February 2011. The event is titled Abhushan: Tradition & Design – Dialogues for the 21st Century. A key element in this event is a series of exhibitions surveying jewellery from different world regions.

For the Asia Pacific region, works will be gathered that respond to the theme of welcome, using the garland as a reference. These garlands are typically given to honoured guests and are either made of flowers or have a floral design.

At a time when there are tensions regarding global migration flows, it seems important that we sustain traditions of welcome. But given limited access to flowers, are there alternative materials that can be used? Also, can these otherwise ephemeral works be transformed into longer-lasting objects, such as jewellery, that can testify to bonds of friendship.

The Asia Pacific region has a rich set of traditions that bestow a garland or neck-wreath. These include:

  • var mala ceremony in Indian weddings
  • phuang malai Thai garland
  • East Timorese tais
  • salusalu welcome wreaths and leis from the Pacific
  • selendang (welcome) in Indonesia
  • medals in Australasia

The exhibition Welcome Signs: contemporary interpretations of traditional garlands will contain works that draw from such traditions for use today. At early this stage, expressions of interest are welcome. Please send them by 30 June 2010 to welcome@craftunbound.net.