Naomi Clarke: School of Jewellery. Birmingham City University. Selected Graduate 2018
Published: 16.10.2018
- Edited by:
- Klimt02
- Edited at:
- Barcelona
- Edited on:
- 2018
Naomi returned to education as a mature student, bringing extensive experience as an auctioneer, and with an interest in the provenance of historical artefacts. She developed a fascinating – and unique – methodology: unpacking jewellery boxes and co-producing, with their owners, visual maps of their contents and associated stories; creating collections that reflect but also subtly disrupt these stories; and, finally, using her experience as auctioneer to cast the shadow of time on these pieces and examine how they might be regarded from a moment in the future, once stripped of the personal associations that make them so meaningful to the stories’ originators. The layered enquiry that Naomi has crafted gets to the heart of the complex role that jewellery plays in familial, institutional and civic collections.
/ Sian Hindle, Course Leader, MA Jewellery and Related Products.
School of Jewellery. Birmingham City University, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
The MA Jewellery and Related Products is an intensive, one year course that requires its students to reflect on and interrogate their creative journey, and to explore the social and cultural forces that shape us as individuals. It has a strong reputation for facilitating students’ material investigations, and a growing focus on the role of adornments and objects in performance. This studio-based MA is just one of a suite of courses at the School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University, which provide opportunities to develop and refine the skills needed to excel in roles across the creative field that encompasses jewellery and its related products.
/ Sian Hindle. Course Leader, MA Jewellery and Related Products.
Magnetic Memories
Whilst working in the auction industry, I found myself absorbed by the chain of inheritance. I became fascinated with the dialogue and provenance that surrounds our most valued belongings, often more so than the objects themselves. This promise of uncovering a story and the prospect of rewriting, or even disrupting, the narrative was fundamental in driving my motivation in returning to university to study for my Masters.
Treasured family stories are rarely written down or recorded, but accrue as memories imbued in our heirlooms, evidencing lives lived before us. Passed down through generations, inaccuracies inevitably creep in and our inheritance becomes entangled with a contemporary view. Facts begin to merge with fiction and a new narrative is born. And so, the cycle continues.
The impression of the biography that is carried withjewellery has become central to my practice. I create simple geometric forms that outwardly do not appear to be wearable yet can nestle and wrap around the contents of a jewellery box. The multi-layered narratives of past and present are represented through stripped-down imagery set in enamel and steel of identical sizes and shapes. Thus, each memory becomes equal to the next, but interchangeable as magnetic components allow for the wearer to rearrange them, creating new and wearable ornamental narratives in doing so.
Crafted through hand processes that reflect the emotional investment carried in the heirlooms and the stories that surround them, my MA collection – Magnetic Memories - presented as an auction catalogue represents a singular, sensory expression of the relationships that exist in owning and wearing jewellery of mixed histories and heritage.
/ Naomi Clarke
More work and contacts:
Email: Naomi@nwclarke.com
Website: NWClarke.com
Instagram: NWClarkejewellery
MA Blog: OMIJewels.com
Find out more about the courses at: School of Jewellery. Birmingham City University.
The MA Jewellery and Related Products is an intensive, one year course that requires its students to reflect on and interrogate their creative journey, and to explore the social and cultural forces that shape us as individuals. It has a strong reputation for facilitating students’ material investigations, and a growing focus on the role of adornments and objects in performance. This studio-based MA is just one of a suite of courses at the School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University, which provide opportunities to develop and refine the skills needed to excel in roles across the creative field that encompasses jewellery and its related products.
/ Sian Hindle. Course Leader, MA Jewellery and Related Products.
Magnetic Memories
Whilst working in the auction industry, I found myself absorbed by the chain of inheritance. I became fascinated with the dialogue and provenance that surrounds our most valued belongings, often more so than the objects themselves. This promise of uncovering a story and the prospect of rewriting, or even disrupting, the narrative was fundamental in driving my motivation in returning to university to study for my Masters.
Treasured family stories are rarely written down or recorded, but accrue as memories imbued in our heirlooms, evidencing lives lived before us. Passed down through generations, inaccuracies inevitably creep in and our inheritance becomes entangled with a contemporary view. Facts begin to merge with fiction and a new narrative is born. And so, the cycle continues.
The impression of the biography that is carried withjewellery has become central to my practice. I create simple geometric forms that outwardly do not appear to be wearable yet can nestle and wrap around the contents of a jewellery box. The multi-layered narratives of past and present are represented through stripped-down imagery set in enamel and steel of identical sizes and shapes. Thus, each memory becomes equal to the next, but interchangeable as magnetic components allow for the wearer to rearrange them, creating new and wearable ornamental narratives in doing so.
Crafted through hand processes that reflect the emotional investment carried in the heirlooms and the stories that surround them, my MA collection – Magnetic Memories - presented as an auction catalogue represents a singular, sensory expression of the relationships that exist in owning and wearing jewellery of mixed histories and heritage.
/ Naomi Clarke
More work and contacts:
Email: Naomi@nwclarke.com
Website: NWClarke.com
Instagram: NWClarkejewellery
MA Blog: OMIJewels.com
Find out more about the courses at: School of Jewellery. Birmingham City University.
Brooch: His and Hers, 2018
Vitreous enamel, steel, nylon flock.
Ø 6 cm and 5 cm
From series: Magnetic Memories
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Brooch: Jack’s Dairy, 2018
Vitreous enamel, steel, nylon flock.
Ø 7 cm
From series: Magnetic Memories
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Brooch: Phyllis, 2018
Vitreous enamel, steel, nylon flock, walnut, neodymium magnets.
Ø 7.5 cm
From series: Magnetic Memories
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Object: #1, 2018
Vitreous enamel, copper, bocote wood, tulipwood, Indian laurel wood, rosewood, English bog oak, neodymium magnets.
2 x 2 x 2 cm
From series: Magnetic Memories
Interchangeable components
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Brooch: #2, 2018
Vitreous enamel, steel, nylon flock, walnut, paper, enamel paint, neodymium magnets.
7.5 x 7.5 cm
From series: Magnetic Memories
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Brooch: #3, 2018
Vitreous enamel, steel, silver, nylon flock, walnut, neodymium magnets.
length: 8.5 cm
From series: Magnetic Memories
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
- Edited by:
- Klimt02
- Edited at:
- Barcelona
- Edited on:
- 2018
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