Soul Searching Leaps
First, thank you to every one who wrote me offline, in the comments or on Facebook about the last post. I have to say, this is one brave community! It was lovely to hear affirmation that constructive criticism and encouragement to push oneself is something many of you would really like to see more of. Because this blog is so public, I won’t be changing up what I do here, but that has resurrected an idea I had a few years ago that was shelved because Voila was covering the peer critiques quite well ,and I was otherwise occupied too. Not that I’m not overly occupied right now, but when things slow down a little, I have some ideas that I’ll explore concerning ways to get honest feedback. If anyone has their own ideas and you think we can help, do let us know!
In the meantime, let’s explore that idea of doing something unusual, of pushing oneself into trying something new. In this case, we are looking at jewelry artist Chris Carlson, who worked in traditional and natural materials for many years before finally making the leap to polymer after a period of uncertainty. In her own words:
“After years of using only the most beautiful stones, pearls, bone and other natural materials, it took more than a little soul-searching to take the leap to incorporate a material as different from those as polymer. I hope you’ll agree that while the materials may be radically different, the designs are true to the philosophy I’ve held from the beginning.”
Her philosophy encompasses the idea of working in a primitive spirit with a contemporary simplistic approach. If you take a look at her work in natural materials and then in her polymer work, you’ll see the leap she took and the freedom of form she has embraced with polymer, but you’ll also see she doesn’t stray from her own aesthetic approach to do so. Her inspiration for her polymer looks to be her own prior work and love of the “spirit of primitive tribal and ethnographic artifacts that touch the soul.”
“Bravo” to another brave soul.
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