Suzi Plunkett: November 2009

Sunday 15 November 2009

Line Project

Our second project in Jewellery Design was to produce a neckpiece of brooch, inspired by the techniques of one jeweller and the philosophies and style of one artist, using wire to construct. For my jeweller I chose Hanna Hedman as I love her oversized range of neckwear and its resemblance to seaweed and organic objects.

I'd studied Egon Schiele in 6th year at high school and revisited him as my inspirational artist because his use of line and the way he elongates his subjects is really interesting.

I also really like his stylised technique of drawing hands and fingers. After watching Life a few weeks ago, I love you David Attenborough!, I chose Seahorses and Sea Dragons to base my piece on, and really wanted to produce a large necklace. After lots of sketches of adorable pigmy seahorses and leafy seadragons I began making a small necklace for my sister. It developed from a small article I'd read on these sea creatures, and a phrase that kept coming back to me was "wheeling around in unison", referring to their "pre-dawn dance", during courtship. I kept picturing the little seahorses spinning round in a circle, on a wheel, and this led to several sketches of seahorse carousels!

I played around with making wire hangers that I could attatch the mini seahorses I'd cut out of copper, and different lengths of chain. I hadn't appreciated how time consuming chain making is, but at the same time it's kind of relaxing... Stupid me decided on a long, thin chain, resulting in hours and hours and hooooouuuuurs of cutting small jump rings, attatching them, soldering them and repeating... Looking at my macete now, I realise that I'd rather have the seahorses elongated, and more stylised like Egon Schiele. This isn't my final idea, but it's a good way to practice techniques without the samples going to waste in my sketchbook. Once this one is completed, I plan to silver plate it and give it to my sister for Christmas.... nothing like saving the pennies.

For my final neckpiece however, I hope to use this idea to hang down the back of the wearer, and make a large round tube like structure for the front, hopefully using knitted wire, but I'm still not sure how to do it... I'm glad that at the end of the project, I will (hopefully) have produced a smaller necklace to wear as an everyday accessory, and to also have a larger structural piece that could be worn on special occasions, or for fashion events.

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Assignment 3 Part 2 - Bibliography (updated)

Birren, F. (1984) Color & Human Response: Aspects of Light and Color Bearing on the Reactions of Living Things and the Welfare of Human Beings. Wiley.

“There are in his body the veins called Hita, which are as small as a hair divided a thousandfold, full of white, blue, yellow, green and red.” This is another text from Birren, and looks at colour from a more religious point of view. Although not all that helpful towards my research, learning about the ancient Greeks was integuing. He also firmly believed in the therapeutic effects of bright colors on the mentally troubled. I ended up researching Faber Birren's life, as I found his fascination with colour.... kind of fascinating!

Birren, F. (1979) Color Psychology and Color Therapy: a factual study of the influence of color on Human life. Kessinger Publishing Co.

This text was more appropriate for my topic. Birren looked at the historical, biological and psychological aspects of the influence of colour on humans. Faber Birren was an American writer and industrial colour consultant from the early 1900s, and wrote around 25 texts on colour in his lifetime. Particular points of interests were the symbolic importance of colour, the section on Charles Darwin, the psychological effects of colour and how the metabolism is affected by colour and light. “We know that the color of the skin is regarded by the men of all races as a highly important element in their beauty.” Charles Darwin.

Mack, G (2001) Colours. Birkhäuser Basel.

As I tried to broaden my research, I discovered this book by Gerhard Mack exploring colour design within a “broad horizon of technologically advanced architecture and documents its applications according to different aesthetic approaches. The range of works examined extends from facades to interiors and furniture, and on to the whole spectrum of product design”. It was definitely beneficial in that it was the most obviously relevant to design compared to my other chosen texts. The text looked more at the commercial side of colour psychology.

Nicola Morgan (2003) Mondays are Red. Delacorte Books for Young Readers.

This assignment made me remember a book I'd read a few years ago, Mondays are Red. It is a novel about a young boy who awakens from a meningitis-induced coma to find he has contracted an illness called synesthesia in which ones senses blur into one another. I looked into synesthesia a little more after re-reading this book, and discovered that there have been over 60 reported kinds of synesthesia but only a fraction of these have been scientifically researched. Other relevant texts to this one include "The man who tasted shapes" and "Wednesday is Indigo Blue".

Steatfeild, D. (2007) Brainwash – The Secret History of Mind Control. Hodder Paperback.

I found this book to be very interesting, it was thoroughly researched and explored the methods al qaeda used to recruit young men into being suicide bombers using brainwashing methods and drug influence. Steatfeild's novel also looked at the old interrogation techniques used in war situations. It was useful to see the negative outcomes and dangers of mind manipulation, however, it wasn't really relevant to my topic.