Ellis Cameron: Pieces of Art

This week I’ve been continuing work on my projects, as well as attending two exhibitions which are currently on show around the Glasgow School of Art campus.

The first exhibition I went to see was entitled Not Pretty?, a show of work by 9 male jewellery designers. The exhibition was created in order to showcase the work of some male designers in the field of jewellery, from Scotland and from Australia.

The exhibition ran from 8th to 22nd April 2011 in the Atrium Gallery in the Foulis Building (the same gallery where my work will be showing later on this month).

The designers involved in this exhibition were Nicholas Bastin, Jonathan Boyd, Cesar Cueva, David Goodwin, Christian Hall, Andrew Lamb, Grant McCaig, Micheal Pell and Mark Vaarwerk.

The exhibition was of particular interest to me, as several of the designers are also my tutors for first year. I was really impressed by the sheer diversity of work within the exhibition, and there was a real variety of different materials and processes used in the designers work.

I was particularly attracted to the Scottish designer, Grant McCaig‘s work,  as although he initially trained as a Silversmith, his pieces for the exhibition are forms of jewellery and seem to be taking his work in a whole new direction. He created very ‘boy’ orientated pieces of work for this show, such as his textural spanner-like necklaces (above), made from acrylic, placking and polyester. They are very vibrant, aesthetically appealing necklaces, which have a surprising soft, tactile feel to them.

Michael Pell’s work also holds a nice quality in my opinion, as the balance he creates between his materials is very attractive to view. He created a neck-piecee for the show by using silver, citrine,stainlesss steel bolts and a hand-made chain. I liked the balance the shiny, simplistic metal held against the bold extravagance of the stone. Michael had also been working on several pieces in association with Kelvingrove Museum, recreating his own versions of some of the jewellery which is on display in the gallery. He considered the bold, almost garish jewellery in the museum – pieces which were filled with clusters of jewels – and instead considered the shapes and forms of the pieces. I really connected with his final outcomes, as I felt there was a lovely delicacy in the form of the different jewellery pieces.

I also admired Jonathan Boyd’s jewellery pieces, as he works a lot with words and lettering, conveying the meaning and symbolism behind a piece in simple, effective words. This is something I’ve really enjoyed doing in some of my projects so far this term, so it’s a very appealing style to me.

Then I headed over to the Newbery Tower, where another exhibition was taking place on the ground floor of the building. This one, 40 Years in 1971-2011, was a display of work created by 23 past and present members of staff of the Silversmithing and Jewellery Department of GSA over the last 40 years. The show was created in order to celebrate ‘our time in the Newbery Tower prior to its demolition Summer 2011.’

The designers taking part in this exhibition are Marianne Anderson, Lesley Auld, Jonathan Boyd, John Creed, Jack Cunningham, John Gilcrist, Anna Gordon, Shona Guthrie, Dorothy Hogg, Bill Kirk, Andrew Lamb, Helen Marriott, Roger Millar, Nigel Munro, Gil Packard, Adam Paxton, Michael Pell, Suilven Plazalska, Jimmy Seel, Eric N Smith, Suzanne Smith, Gordon Stewart and Frances Wadsworth-Jones. The exhibition runs from 15th – 29th April 2011, so if you’re in the area at all please pop into the Newbery Tower to have a look at all the different pieces on display – I promise you will not be disappointed!

I felt the show, like Not Pretty?, covered a wide range of expertise and different ways of considering and creating pieces from Silversmith’s and Jeweller’s alike. I also liked how alongside the tutors, the second year Interior Design students had been recruited to design and map out how the space was to be used and how the work was to be displayed – I thought this was a nice (and clever) touch.

Although at present I feel more drawn to Jewellery than Silversmithing, I enjoyed having a look round at all the Silversmithing work, and seeing the variety in the pieces. I loved the simplistic nature of Helen Marriott’s cupcake stand and the way it interacted with Suzanne Smith’s sewn felt cupcakes. I thought this was a great way to display two different designers work in a way which complimented them both. (Editor’s confession: Given Ellis’s regular photographs of food she’s prepared or eaten, we believed absolutely in these cupcakes adn felt the old gastric juices triggered. Felt? Huh.)

I think seeing some of my lecturers work, as well as having them teach me and give me their advice, is very important, as I loved seeing what their own personal pieces of work were like and I felt it gave me an insight into how they designed.

I think as a student it’s good to see the work of those who have graduated and are now part of the GSA Silversmithing and Jewellery Department, as it lets you see the sort of directs you could take in your own work and the possibilities that lay ahead of you. I’m looking forward to future exhibitions of this kind – the Artist in Residence’s exhibition is coming up next week, so I’ll let you all know about that exhibition too.

Ellis Cameron, Young in Argyll correspondent.

Photographs accompanying this article are by Ellis Cameron.