Miriam Pike tries on a boa made from recycled bicycle tires by San Francisco jewelry artist Christine Dhein, while her friend Sara Morris registers her opinion
Here's what I've been thinking about lately: If an object is created for a specific purpose, but it never gets to fulfill that purpose, if it's never used or touched (never imbued with memory), does it become something else? Does it lose its true meaning?
This has been rattling around in my head since I visited the Museum of Contemporary Craft to see "Touching Warms the Art," an exhibit of jewelry where the pieces are laid out for visitors to touch and try on. No glass cases anywhere.
Sixty-seven jewelry artists from 12 different countries designed these pieces specifically to be touched and handled, explained curator Namita Gupta Wiggers, as she led me around, picking out necklaces, bracelets and rings for me to admire. The artists had been told not to use gold and other precious materials, Wiggers said. "It was about deconstructing the idea of jewelry, deconstructing the materials so people can understand the value doesn't come from materials alone. It can come from a texture, the way it makes you feel when you put it on."
And this had led to some fascinating materials-choices: car wash gloves, insulation tape, felt, plastic bottle tops, X-ray film, Legos.
Some of the pieces were strangely elegant: a sea-sponge-like circle from which cascaded dozens of long strands of blue microfilament shot through with pearls. It reminded me of a veiled hat Jackie-O might have worn, although Wiggers said she thought it was a bracelet.
But that was also part of the exhibit's point, Wiggers explained: There was no right way to engage with the jewelry. It was entirely up to you how you wanted to wear it. Over in the corner, the museum has set up a computer and a digital camera, so people can photograph themselves wearing the art. The pictures are then uploaded to a public Flickr site, "so the artists can see some of the unexpected ways people are wearing their work," Wiggers said.
Some of the jewelry was more inviting to try on than others. "This one is very visceral, gutlike," said Wiggers, pointing to a piece that looked vaguely intestinal. She motioned to a bracelet that looked like a piece of hollowed concrete, filled with sharp black needles. "I just can't put my hand in this one," she said. (So of course I had to try; the "needles" turned out to be rubber strands, and they actually felt good brushing over my hand and wrist.)
Miriam Pike of Eugene tries on a piece by Santa Fe artist Eliana Arenas called "Full Body Elongation"
One of the more popular pieces that Wiggers demonstrated was a necklace featuring a cutout of a woman's chest in a bikini top. Like a flip-book, you could coax it (her) through increasing stages of undress, all the way to the bones, and the word "Pervert!" For some reason (Lutheran upbringing?), that scared me more than the needle bracelet, and I did not try it on. But you can be certain I watched to see if anyone else did.
After we walked through the exhibit, Wiggers took me to an adjacent room where they had set up a jewelry-making station for anyone who was inspired to try to create. What's interesting is that without any kind of explicit encouragement, visitors had started to tape their creations to a nearby wall, rather than walk out with them. As I was studying the wall, one of the pieces, a small bracelet, fell to the floor. And for some reason, this mortified me deeply -- that I had disturbed this display, that I had somehow knocked this stranger's art, made from sad little plastic straws.
Wiggers picked it up for me and put it back on the wall. It seemed too precious somehow, too personal for me to touch. Later, as I was leaving, I ran into one of the jewelry artists, Lindsay Huff, who was visiting from Pittsburgh and had come in to see the exhibit for herself. She was wearing the Lego necklace, a magnetic crown (to which someone else had affixed the word "VEGAN") and several bracelets.
I asked her what she liked about the exhibit, and she answered by telling me about her own philosophy as a jewelry maker. "When people buy jewelry from me, I tell them I have a lifetime guarantee. If they ever lose an earring, I'll make them a new one for free. For business, that's probably not very smart, but that's OK. I'd rather it be worn than sitting there."
Now I wish I had touched that little bracelet, even put it on, just for a second.
Source: oregonlive
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