Artist jeweller
Suddenly free at 6pm tonight? Opening in a few hours is IOTA21: Curiosity and Rituals of the Everyday at the John Curtin Gallery. Register here and I’ll see you there!
Alternatively (or indeed while you’re at that link), RSVP to join us for the artist talk on Sunday. Full details below:
Below are a couple of snaps of the JCG install team. They’re wonderful, beautiful, art-loving install nerds. Thank you all for your perseverance, the piece looks magic!
Juukan Tears – Offcuts
After using a jewellers saw that is 0.25mm wide to hand saw around 200m of steel, I linked the cut pieces back together again to form a portrait of the headquarters of the biggest iron ore producer in Australia. To make the portrait, and the 4,600 tears that emanated from it, I cobbled together four separate sheets of recycled corrugated steel. One was swallowed practically whole, while the others left a few offcuts. Some of them were huge sheets with all corrugations intact, and others were small, even dainty. Jewellery scale.
The very limited edition Juukan Tears Offcuts jewellery works are made from these. They are as they fell from the bench, with small jewellery fittings added to make thirty unique and eminently wearable pieces of art.
See these at the opening of:
The Indian Ocean Craft Triennial
Curiosity and Rituals of the Everyday
from 6pm Thursday the 9th of September, at the John Curtin Gallery. They will be on sale beside my work Juukan Tears until the 31st of October, the full the duration of the exhibition, or until sold out.
To make inquiries about the works and for a full price list get in touch with the gallery store, or me, and I can put you in contact with the team there.
Once again from the JCG invitation email;
Saturday 12 September 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Artists’ Talk
Join IOTA21 co-curators Carola Akindele-Obe, Maggie Baxter and Jude van der Merwe in conversation with Melissa Cameron (WA), Garry Sibosado (WA) and Desmond Lazaro (India/VIC) as they discuss their arts practice and the challenges and rewards of creating contemporary craft work within the Indian Ocean region.
To book CLICK HERE
There are a few events happening at the JCG over the course of the IOTA21 run at the gallery. Click here to see them and RSVP online. Don’t forget to RSVP for the opening event there too 😉
And because it’s been a lot of text around here of late:
Juukan Tears – panel section wrapped and ready to roll!
From the JCG invitation email:
Mr Chris Malcolm, Director JCG, invites you to the opening of:
The Indian Ocean Craft Triennial
Curiosity and Rituals of the Everyday
6.00pm – 8.00pm Thursday 9 September 2021
To be opened by Dr Casta Tungaraza
Tanzania’s Tourism Goodwill Ambassador in AustraliaWelcome to Country by Ms Glenda Kickett, Whadjuk Nyungar yorga.
Exhibition Opening
6.00pm to 8.00pm Thursday 9 September 2021The exhibition continues from 10 September – 31 October 2021
Opening hours:
Monday-Friday 11.00am – 5.00pm
Sunday 12.00pm – 4.00pmIf you have any special requirements to enable you to participate in this event, please advise when you RSVP. We will contact you to provide assistance. For more information about disability services at Curtin, please visit disability.curtin.edu.au. Make tomorrow better.
I invite you to come and see the debut of my new work, Juukan Tears, in the Triennial for which it was commissioned. I’ll be there at the opening so please do say hi!
Here we go…
The Value Chains JMGA online conference begins tomorrow evening (AEST) with Simon Cottrell, the co-chair of the original and postponed conference, and includes Roseanne Bartley, Claire McArdle, Julia Wild, Jonathan Zalakos and Joanna Zellmer. This is followed by matt lambert with “Other People’s Business: What makes a material new and what does it mean to use a material from someone else’s value chain?” In their talk matt will invite individual presentations by Kelly Macdonald, Victoria Mcintosh, Zoe Brand with a panel discussion chaired by matt. Can’t wait to see them, they’ve moved country to pursue their PhD since we last met face-to-face!
what a way to kick off, no?
Successive weeks and months will see a host of other jewellers from all over, obviously predominantly from Aus/NZ, gracing our screens. Representing WA on the 21st of September will be Sarah Elson and I, speaking about our new works on display (by then) as a part of IOTA21. Tickets for the whole series are available now and the lineup is listed at the Garland website. I am told that the Airmeet platform will be able to replay sessions on demand.
Speaking of IOTA21 and September…
I will be part of a panel at the IOTA21 Futuring Craft Conference. “Gestures of Welcome; exploring jewellery as a gesture of welcome in response to Australian immigration policy” is conveyned by Belinda Newick, and includes on the panel contemporary jewellers; Mel Young (NSW), Lauren Simeoni (SA), Vicki Mason (VIC), Melissa Cameron (WA); CEO of Museum of Freedom and Tolerance, Shaheen Hughes (WA) and another speaker TBC.
FYI – the conference runs in Fremantle and Bentley to take in both IOTA venues, so on Friday the 17th it’s at the WA Maritime Museum in Fremantle, while on Sat it’s at at Curtin University. We’ll be speaking Saturday, 18 September 12:00 pm – 12:55 pm, Room 201 BLDG 501 – Education Building. Tickets here, more info (oh yeah, and there’s a fashion show at Boola Bardip on Sunday too!) at the link above!
You’ll have hopefully seen about town that the Fremantle Arts Centre opening of IOTA21 will be on Friday the 17th, (conference day 1), and I have it on good authority that the John Curtin Gallery (JCG) opening will be happening the week before. I also have penciled in for the JCG opening weekend a Sunday artists and curators talk at the Gallery, on the 12th of September. (That’s still subject to final confirmation, so keep that one on the down low for now, ok?)
And in case you haven’t heard enough from me…
Connexions is finally going to have its grand peacock moment, when the now-expanded exhibition debuts at Gallery Central at Northwest Metropolitan Tafe on Thursday the 30th of September, from 5:30pm. For the opening night we are excited to have secured Australian jewellery luminary Katherine Kalaf to kick of proceedings. Following on from that, we have our artist talk in the gallery on Saturday the 2nd of October at 12pm (hopefully including a zoom component – stay tuned for further details). Further dates and times for the show at the IOTA21 website.
And once I’m done with all that I’ll be taking a vow of silence!
Tech woes 😉
We have our best and brightest on the case, it should be running shortly. x m
Holy moly, where did that month go?
Well, at this end I’ve been working on new pieces for the scaled up Connexions Exhibition, that will have it’s official opening in Perth as a satellite event of IOTA21 on the 30th of September. Mark your diaries for that, and leave the evening of Tuesday the 21st free if you are interested in hearing from myself and my esteemed colleague Sarah Elson (Sarah and me go way back, she first featured on this blog in 2010) in our presentations for the re-calibrated online JMGA conference, Value Chains.
Quite the digressions, it has been a while.
What I came here to say, as indicated in the title, is that we’re coming up on moving day for the Juukan Tears work. It’s scheduled for pickup Friday the 6th of August from 8:30am AWST.
In a stroke of good luck (am I even brave enough to say it out loud? Touching lots of wood right now, y’all) the current forecast is for sun. For those of you not keeping up with the West Australian winter, Perth has broken several records in the rainfall department over July. I have been found complaining to some of my Seattle friends about the quantity of grey days and the unusual brine-y smell that seems adopted from that other WA – Washington State, that is.
OK, back to the task at hand. The work that was the subject of over 4 months of footage on the Melissa Cameron YouTube channel, Juukan Tears, is going to be prepped for relocation, after I complete a couple of important tasks. Thus the channel will be operating with new live footage for a few days next week as the work’s production goes into encore mode!
Not to spoil all the action, but I haven’t yet signed the work and there’s some welding to do to the letter forms now that the best fixing method has been arrived upon. There’s a bit of testing, a bit of wrapping and some more random chatting before we literally send the work off the 1st floor balcony next Friday.
Of course I’m getting the whole gang back together for that event – Susannah Kings-Lynne will be in the house, along wth Bruce, he of occasional cameo fame (mostly in on tech-related matters), alongside our other cameo artist Mir Ng, of short-filming fame.
At this stage I will start at 10:00am AWST on Monday, and I’ll finish up when I’m done wrapping. In other zones that’s at:
Auckland – 2:00 pm
New York – 10:00 pm*
Sydney -12:00 pm
Calgary – 8:00 pm*
Seattle – 7:00 pm*
/ / / *Sunday, the 1st if August
From Monday until I finish the wrapping I’ll be happy to chat if you have any queries, and it will remain available to re-stream indefinitely.
The Friday event will be, as mentioned, from 8:30am AWST, or:
Auckland –12:30 pm
New York – 8:30 pm*
Sydney -10:30 pm
Calgary – 6:30 pm*
Seattle – 5:30 pm*
Catch you next week!
*Thursday, the 5th of August
The Indian Ocean Triennial Australia 2021 is coming! I must’ve mentioned it a bit, in passing at least, as my new work Juukan Tears will debut as a part of the festival when it opens in September.
But what is it?
Well, it’s a presentation of new works from a curated selection of artists from all over the Indian Ocean region. To show these works the Indian Ocean Triennial Australia curatorial team has collaborated with two major WA galleries; the Fremantle Arts Centre and the John Curtin Gallery.
And it’s also a huge series of satellite events (which includes the Aussie debut of the Connexions exhibition), and a massive opening weekend and a conference.
Shall we cut to an audio-visual for all-round better explanation?
IOTA21 Artist & Program Launch from IOTA21 on Vimeo.
BTW, if you’re missing my dulcet tones in your ear, stay at least until 45 seconds in, and if you want those sonorous tones (big irony here team, I’m even more high-pitched than usual, shall we say I was attempting to be heard over the waves..?) accompanied by my visage – and hands – (I’m talking with them of course!) stick with it for at least 1 minute!
To stay up-to-date with the artists involved and the timetable of events you gotta see the IOTA21 website. And start making your plans to see world-class art all around Perth in September.
After being back home in WA for well over two years, I am proud to finally have a local Perth stockist! Find a broad selection of my work, including the earrings above and many more, at the store in the John Curtin Gallery on the main Curtin University campus.
JCG – John Curtin Gallery
Building 200A
Curtin University
Kent Street
Bentley, Western Australia 6102
Phone +61 8 9266 4155
Email gallery@curtin.edu.au
Public opening hours
During exhibitions only:
Monday to Friday: 12 – 5pm
Sunday 12 – 4pm
Thanks to all the gallery staff for their support, and I look forward to sending more fun things your way in the coming months as we lead up to the IOTA21 launch in September.
Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve shared the IOTA21 launch film yet. Whoops! Next up, the IOTA launch film with cameos from some of your favourite craft Perthlings. (And if you only know one craftizen in Perth, there chance of seeing her is very high!)
Opening weekend on the Saturday 3-4 July 2021 11.00 am to 5.00 pm.
Aurélie Guillaume, Bin Dixon-Ward, Brenda Ridgewell, Carlier Makigawa, Claire McArdle, Cinnamon Lee, Chris Bahng, Daniel DiCaprio, David Walker, Eugenie Keefer Bell, Fumiki Taguchi, Helen Aitken-Kuhnen, Johannes Kuhnen, Julie Blyfield, Kath Inglis, Larah Nott, Marian Hosking, Mio Kuhnen, Melissa Cameron, Nicholas Bastin, Sean O’Connell, Su san Cohn, Takashi Kojima, Taweesak Molsawat and Vicki Mason.
What, for a jeweller, would constitute the perfect brooch? Gallery Bilk has invited twenty-five contemporary jewellers from around the world to respond to this question and they have risen to the challenge in a myriad of surprising and enchanting ways that will be showcased in The Perfect Brooch exhibition, which opens at Gallery Bilk on Saturday 3 July.
Conceptual adventures, technical skill, new directions and the exploration of jewellery’s capacity to express sentimental connections all find a place in the show. Amongst the many works to be seen, the exhibition will feature a romantic brooch showcasing a single diamond and a secret only visible to its wearer; a complex enamelled jewel that pays homage to the ephemeral treasures we collect in our everyday lives; a bouquet of plants that tell the story of the relationship between the maker and her late partner and a brooch that features a dazzling collection of semi-precious stones balanced precariously in a bravura exercise of technical skill. In an innovative collaboration that provides an encapsulation of the exhibition’s proposition, two artists will deploy artificial intelligence technology to synthesise images of all the works in the exhibition to create an ultimate “perfect brooch”.
Gallery Hours: The exhibition will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11.00 am to 5.00 pm or by appointment until the Saturday 7 August 2021.
Bilk Gallery – 403 Captians Flat Road Carwoola – (02) 6232 9411
text from Bilk Gallery