Kiff slemmons biography of michael

The artist and members of the atelier did the work together. Early pieces referenced African jewelry with discs built up into sculptural bead forms. Later pieces exhibit the techniques of folding, cutting and hollow-punching, rolled and formed paper pulp. Talking about paper in Oaxaca involves countering assumptions about the material, its fragility versus strength, the metaphoric implications of paper in this regard, in relation to books and the culture at large.

What paper meant in pre-contact culture in Mexico, its magnified significance after conquest and its current place in culture today. How I came to work as I did there means looking at my previous work, how it might have led to such a project which involves a kind of world view through jewelry and writing. My work is really not technique determined, even with the paper.

I wanted to see what we might have to say about paper, about simplicity and elaboration, about structure and design, about durability and the ephemeral, about the value of material and idea in jewelry, the possibilities of improvisation and collaboration, about the spirit of invention in usual and unusual circumstances with limited but focused resources.

All of which would never have happened without the combined effort and skills of all of us. I know you take these talks very seriously and they are as much about being creative for you as is making a piece of jewelry. The sense of paper was more present. There was a more direct line from plant to paper. As we made the initial elements, we came to see them as bones, the skeletons of the jewelry.

I know you take these talks very seriously and they are as much about being creative for you as is making a piece of jewelry. Can you tell us a bit about this one? Kiff Slemmons: Yes, I always put together talks as a kind of scripted performance.

Kiff slemmons biography of michael

Making a talk is very much like making a piece of jewelry. I want to communicate something about jewelry, its importance in the culture and at the same time include it seamlessly into the purview of art. There is an element of the subversive in the way I talk about jewelry, partly by being both poetic and plain speaking in my approach.

I like to build up access to more complicated ideas through these layers. Form and structure are powerful tools. For this particular talk I was asked to give an overview of my work, including the connection to paper. It was a challenge to articulate this course in my work since it was never that mysterious to me how, or more accurately why, I ended up working over many years with paper as well as metal.

I then talked about these threads in different bodies of work as well as the importance of exhibition as site for the work, almost more than the body as site for jewelry. For me it is not so necessary that jewelry be worn, though most of my work is quite wearable, but rather it is the implied site as jewelry that must remain. Since , Slemmons has been recognized for her work with Mexican artists making and designing paper jewelry, resulting in colorful and intricate pieces using traditional bead-making techniques and dyes from indigenous plants.

Her own work includes historical and literary references, incorporating selected found objects, generally non-precious materials, which she fabricates into detailed pieces with silver and other metals. Slemmons expresses that three threads run through her work, "scale, the language of material and the idea of more than one to make one. In her exhibition The Thought of Things , Slemmons made jewelry that used parts of aged photographs, rulers, typewriters, and other found objects in order to elicit a direct personal response.

Another series of works that question worth and value was the much talked-about Re:Pair and Imperfection. In the process of preparing the series, she asked some of her peers to give her pieces that are unfinished because they are unwanted or somehow flawed. Although much of Slemmons' work references her early life and the time spent at her father's newspaper office, incorporating pencils and text, some of the artist's most recent work uses ancient artifacts and pays homage to ancient artisans and the persistence of the human spirit.

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