I must admit this brief has caused a lot of sleepless nights. Just to recap if you haven’t read my first post about the ‘Archetypes’ exhibition at Koldinghus this June, all the Danish Silversmiths are designing and making a piece of silver for an Archetype. And I’ve found it quite hard to get started.
Then, about 10 days ago, the tittle got changed to ‘Dedicated Silver’ which now puts the whole brief in a different perspective. I don’t know if it’s better or worse, it has still been really hard to find the instant inspiration to kick me off.
So, I thought, now is a really good time to do some case studying. Practice what you preach! Which is what I’ll do to get this one kickstarted, and turn a brief I’m not particularly inspired by into an exciting project, generating good ideas, resulting in a fantastic end product!
Now, the research face is always really difficult if you don’t have that instant inspiration. So, to get a thought process going, asking a question is always good. My question was: What am I passionate about making? (It could have been; who do I want to dedicate an object to, but that didn’t really give me anything – and I’m a great believer of always starting with your passion). Well, I’m passionate about making candle sticks – I just love the fact that it’s such an non-functional object, but everybody has them. By non-functioanl I mean, we really don’t need them to see in the dark, but we have them to create an atmosphere. So that’s my passion.
Then, who could I dedicate a candle light/stick to? Someone who works in the dark? Let me just say that I’m looking at this as a ‘fictional’ object, so I will build a story around the object and the person, but it will be fictional. My suggestions of people who work in the dark are: night watchman, person working in the sewer, postman, miner, chimney sweeper and night club persona… They are not all working in actual darkness, but it’s something to start from.
Instantly I feel for the chimney sweeper. I can see him in front of me – all matt black covered with soot. Lovely and a bit scary, with his eyes lighting up. My chimney man definitely needs a light. I want it to be black and like a lantern – hanging from a peg or something.
Next step will be to start doodling, sketching and maybe some more research on my chimney man. I do need to produce a picture of him to exhibit with my object.