Furnitex 06

Responding to the four 'Arks' of this years Decoration and Design for Trend Book

IVORY TOWER

Aristotle said “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work”. It’s a simple solution to an age old problem. How do we attain perfection in an imperfect world? Perhaps we don’t. Perhaps it’s the journey where the beauty lies. As we choose carefully how to construct our environment, we can turn our minds to higher things. We can meditate on the finest of cut diamonds – not only the ones found on the ring finger but in the unique perfection of a drop of water. This is not about the attainment of objects, endlessly constructing a fools paradise. That is far too crowded an idea.

Imagine a room full of objects, far too many, you can barely move. And then slowly you consider each one. Their form, their story, the song they sing to you. You remove the unnecessary, the loud and brash. You clear a path. This is not about what kettle you have, what car you drive or the thread count of your sheets. It’s about finding a place of stillness, where it all fits perfectly into place. It can become a retreat where you can rise above the practical, where your considerations are purely intellectual.

Thought becomes elegant. History is an opera. Food is a feast. Conversation is philosophy. Beauty is everywhere.

To see a world in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake (1757 - 1827)

Menagerie

Let’s play a game. Close your eyes. Don’t be scared. This room is like a magic box that can take you anywhere you want to go, be whoever you want to be. Remember when you told me once how you wanted to travel around the world, write books, take photos and where the national costume of 12 different nations? Well now is your chance. Just close your eyes. What can you see? Smell? Hear?

This is no time for inhibitions. Life is in the room with you and it’s stirring up trouble. I’ll let you in on a little secret. You no longer have to play by the rules. You can stay up all night, you can run away and join the circus, and you can paint your lips red and sing to the moonlight.

Close your eyes. Can you feel the hot winds of the desert? Smell the salt of a forgotten sea? Taste the forbidden fruit from a secret garden? All this can be yours if you just let go.

You don’t care what other people think; this is not the time to be afraid. Adventure promotes understanding. Discover other ways of being and you can embrace diversity and champion the independent spirit.

BUNKER

My needs are simple. Check email, make coffee download podcasts, check messages, take photos, post photos, write blogs, read blogs. My studio consists of nothing but wires and white space. I am in the bunker and some days I don’t come up for air. All I need is right here. I watch films, I watch film previews. I read books I order them thru amazon.com. I wear t-shirts, I order them thru Remo. My favorite says ‘It’s a beautiful day, what are you doing outside?’ I eat food. I order it thru greengrocer.com. I subscribe to crikey.com; I have 243 friends on MySpace.

My chair is functional, I have an iPod, I have a blackberry, I have a hotmail account, I have an outlook account, I have a DVD collection. I download my films and watch them in parts that suit me. My clothes are built for comfort and speed. I’m ready for anything, I can travel light. I’m an intellectual athlete in training for millennia of possibilities.

I can hear the city outside my window. The low hum of electricity fills the room. Data is everywhere. I have things to do, puzzles to solve. I like terminology. I like coffee. I telecommute. My phone goes everywhere. Sometimes my eyes get tired so I have to sleep or go for a walk. The world is interesting to me. It is both outside and inside. Everything is a visual cue. Everything is a building block. Everything is possible.

SHACK CHIC

Not so much the call of nature but the accoutrement of our interaction with it. The log cabin awaits deep in the woods where we can escape from the wilds of contemporary life. It’s a space warm with nostalgia an aesthetic that takes its cues from summer holidays, family, and pioneer ingenuity.

It’s all about renegade craft and the new flush of readymade DIY that makes you revel in your own self reliance and creativity. Knitting, cooking, building, reclaiming. A free and easy way to be. Without pretension and with an air of practicality you make stuff, you share it, you enjoy the process. You get to participate in new communities based around skill sharing and ideas.

The objects that surround you all have a story. You can pull out the quilt that nanna made you, the cardigan that keeps you toasty in front of the evening fire. Soup simmers on the stove, card games are played on the front porch. Socks are mended, birthdays are remembered, and gifts are made.

Cubbies are built as they were in childhood only now we can go one better, we can live in the cubby all the time. Paring down our lives to live simply, frugally and with a sense of peace.

Emma Davies Craft Victoria July 06

The New Nature of Emma Davies

One morning a small bird flew into the studio courtyard of Emma Davies to construct a new residence in a window eave that overlooked her studio bench. The bird clearly liked what it saw. This did not appear to be the stuff of nature, but it was obvious the artist had a natural response to material. The same questions were being asked. What can I do with this? Can I bend it, stretch it and create form?

Several weeks later Davies noticed a perfectly constructed nest, only this was one with a difference. The bird had introduced new and unexpected design elements. Brightly coloured ‘twigs’ of polypropylene that had found their way to the studio floor now decorated the small birds new home. It was the nest of the future.

Bird and Artist with the same sensibility.

Birds are not the only ones curious about Davies’ work. She has been confounding us all with her ‘woven’ vessels for some time. Even with the strangeness of the material – intensely coloured industrial mesh – she has created objects that defy their origins and become precious. The non-functionality, uniqueness and tug of war between delicacy and robustness is seductive. The arrangement of vessels become a still-life tableaux.

With the opportunity move away from the vessel Davies has pushed herself further to turn the three dimensional to create sculptural pieces. She has pushed the material to its limits, sometimes playing with its delicate lacelike quality, other times forcing it into more solid forms. Davies takes a basic, industrial material, one that is limited in gauge and colour to create something beautiful.

That small bird is honoured with a forest of nests, branches, pod shapes.

And now we are surrounded by this new nature. The small bird is gone. All that remains is a small, perfectly designed nest, both in the courtyard and in the gallery.

end.

Published June 06 Craft Culture

Elfrun Lach: Correlation
An exhibition of contemporary jewelry.
Review by Ramona Barry

The catalogue for jeweler Elfrun Lach’s exhibition at Pieces of Eight gives us some clue to the title ‘Correlation’. There are connections to be made everywhere. Not just to the word play on coral, a source of inspiration and material for Lach, but also in the juxtaposition between the objects and both historical and natural references.

We see the infant Jesus on Mary’s knee in a 15th century painting by Piero della Francesca. Around His neck a chain of scarlet beads punctuated by blood red coral. A full page devoted to the gnarled bark of a tree, its sister image a brooch created from a small twig bound with red cotton thread.

What are we to make of all these signifiers? Do we read the work as a narrative? It is only jewelry after all. These days you can remove the only. In the current craft climate jewelers rule supreme as the object makers of the day. They can load their work not just statements but stories as complex as the work itself. Lach is not afraid of sophistication. She fully embraces the historical in her very contemporary pieces. She reveals her fine art background here – wanting a context for the work.

This is always a fine thing in an exhibition context. We want so much more than small price tags and nice lighting. Lach does not ignore wearability. All the pieces respond well to the body. A bangle constructed from coral/leaflike leather shapes could be production work. A set of coral branch earrings, finely beaded and understated may find there way home to this reviewers top drawer.

There are some real show stoppers among the 25 pieces on display. ‘Broome’
is a single strand necklace constructed from white porcelain and coral and is fit for an underwater queen. There is a red version too that is a real statement piece. The two necklaces stand as punctuation for the show – both are flanked by more challenging work. ‘Made in Germany’ is a shorter neckpiece constructed from curved sections of white recycled plastic.

But for me the really finest work in the show is where Lach allows herself to completely strip back the preciousness. The final piece ‘Corallium Pentop’ a simple sterling silver chain ‘studded’ with common plastic red pen lids. Clearly Lach has begun to see coral everywhere. I was struck by its simplicity, and yes its beauty even. It was playful, irreverent even amongst the finer pieces.

Pieces of Eight is the latest in a cluster of contemporary jewelry galleries in Melbourne. It is a town that has embraced the art of gold and silversmithing beyond the humble wedding band and into the realm of the conceptual. The Cicely and Colin Rigg Design Award at the National Gallery of Victoria has turned its gaze to this craft exclusively this year, E.G Etal gallery opened their second retail space, and craft stalwarts Makers Mark opened a new store devoted exclusively to jewelry.

Pieces of Eight has different energy to all these places as the studios are almost on view from the gallery floor. Not a factory in the sense that work is being churned out, but a place of ideas, conversation and most interestingly process.

Director Melanie Katsalidis is keen to have a strong exhibition program, enriching each show with a comprehensive catalogue. The studio makers at the rear of the space extend their work outwards to the gallery. You know instantly that it is a place where things are made, where objects come to life.

Lach is an interesting case in point. Originally trained as painter she has a keen eye for the natural object – twigs, coral; the natural material – cotton, silver, glass, felt; and most interestingly the unnatural object – polypropylene and plastics. Her bead encrusted twigs are reminiscent of the encapsulated objects of sculptor Louise Weaver. Even when covering an object Lach wants the spirit of that object to still be tangible.

The students of Robert Baines, the captain steering the RMIT ship always seem to graduate with very clear intent. Their finishes are always flawless, they produces bodies of work that have a sense of completion. That is all well and good, but what next?

I imagine it must be a challenge to push beyond that final years work. Clearly Lach has done this, and in such a small amount of time. The dust has barely settled on her graduate show, she is already embarking on a Masters degree and has somehow delivered an engaging and well resolved body of work.

In some respect the Twig brooches last seen in her graduate show seem a little out of place amongst the finer work. Lach has finessed her ideas of precious/non precious and historical context at a rapid rate. It’s good to see she graduated with her own voice clear in her head.

To see preciousness in the mundane is a gift for the object maker. Marry fine craftsmanship with unexpected material and it gets really exciting, for jeweler and collector alike.

Elfrun Lach:Correlation runs until July 15 2006

Pieces of Eight
635 Brunswick Street
North Fitzroy 3068

www.piecesofeight.com.au
PH 03 9497 8121