For the holidays Im switching artistic hats for a bit and going back to making jewelry pictures to show at the December MoMAC exhibit. I first began doing this approximately 17 years ago for my Creative Thinking Capstone project in college. When my paternal grandmother died when I was 14 years old my heart was broken. My dad was an only child and so my brothers and I were very spoiled (ie. loved) by my grandmother. I in particular, cherished our relationship since I was her only granddaughter. She was the type of grandma who would have me over for a slumber party in her attic where she would show me old photo albums of her boyfriends, and old dresses she would wear on dates. My absolute favorite thing was going through her treasure chest of costume jewelry and trinkets. It was like heaven for me to look through the beautiful nostalgic jewelry while listening to her stories of where the pieces came from or on what occasion she wore them. When she passed, I inherited all her jewelry. For many years it was kept in boxes until I had the notion to honor my grandmothers memory and her treasures in a collaged picture. I had never done this before so the process was trial and error. The end result depicted the exact wonderment I felt every time I looked into my grandmothers treasure chest and the picture earned me an A in my art class. Today, Ive been going through my lot of newly collected jewelry and Im sorting the pieces I am going to use in new pictures. As I was going through the stash, I came across a jewelry box with one of my grandmothers necklaces inside and when I opened it the scent of her perfume hit me in the face. It was glorious and the smell made me smile (with tears). Its so funny how a smell transports you to a time and place. It made me think of a thousand little thoughts of her all at once. It was such a special surprise. Thats why my heart loves making these jewelry pictures. The pieces I use now may not come from people I know, but each piece has a story and a bit of soul from the women who wore them...
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 18:38:12 +0000
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