Studio Notes No. 02: Unrepeatable Plots - an exhibition brooch
If you're new here, Studio Note No. 01: origin Story explores how I came to jewellery through style, design and self-expression.
One of my favourite things to do when walking through the city at night is to look up at the windows of apartment buildings.
Not in a creepy way, I promise!
I'm simply curious about people.
I find myself wondering how they live, what objects they choose to surround themselves with, what makes them different from one another and what makes them the same.
From a distance, apartment buildings can seem repetitive. Rows of identical windows stacked inside identical concrete boxes.
Sometimes I'm reminded of the song Little Boxes and its criticism of a world becoming increasingly uniform.
Yet the more I look, the less convincing that idea becomes.
Because behind every identical window is a person with a life that has never existed before and will never exist again.
Every individual is unrepeatable.
This fascination with individuality has gradually found its way into my jewellery.
I find myself increasingly drawn to stones that many jewellers would reject.
I love inclusions, fractures, irregularities and imperfections.
The features that prevent a stone from being repeated are often the same features that make it interesting.
These imperfect stones are fast becoming a signature of my practice.
I think it's because they remind me of people.
Not because they are perfect, but because they aren't.
The qualities that make them unique are the qualities that make them worth noticing.
Sometimes my work will begin during a daytime walk.
I'll often stop to photograph places where nature and the built environment collide.
A patch of moss forcing its way through concrete.
Lichen creeping across weathered infrastructure.
Unexpected moments of growth amongst grit, asphalt and steel.
These small encounters feel quietly hopeful.
Nature doesn't ask permission.
It simply occupies whatever space it can find.
These observations became the starting point for Unrepeatable Plots, created for the exhibition Only Once.
The brooch combines a rigid architectural framework with fragments of raw uvarovite garnet druzy.
The silver structure references the ordered geometry of the urban environment. The stone pushes back against that order through its irregular, unrepeatable surface.
Some of the silver was formed using recycled production scrap and filings, creating a gritty texture inspired by urban infrastructure.
At its heart, however, the piece is about individuality.
The exhibition title Only Once immediately brought to mind the uniqueness of both these stones and the people they represent.
Cities can appear vast and anonymous, but they are ultimately collections of singular lives.
The stones in this work became stand-ins for those lives.
Each one different.
Each one imperfect.
Each one impossible to repeat.
