Scull by Helen Britton

The work started in an old warehouse in America. Beginning in 1948, the company had been buying up mass-produced jewellery leftovers worldwide, in a kind of frenzy of collection. You could find stuff from virtually every country and every decade of the 20th century. There were millions of elements, and I read them as a kind of emotional history of the everyday. In having been produced quickly and cheaply, I enjoyed the freedom of design I found in these small objects, how closely they reflected the popular culture of their period, and their experimental qualities as different companies tried to initiate a jewellery craze or catch onto something new. I selected elements because of their strangeness, their beauty, the memories they evoked (I actually found parts of things that I had worn as a child too), or where they were made. I started to make simple drawings of the things I found and then I continued with drawing my own collection of mass-produced jewellery, and then went on to drawing the jewellery from my childhood and so the drawings developed their own momentum. Alongside these drawings, I produced a group of jewellery with the elements from the warehouse. I concentrated on simple production techniques, stamping and folding, building housings, and contraptions. I wanted to give the elements the chance to continue their lives in a new context, without denying their roots. With the experience of this place as incentive, I also took the opportunity to vent my own decorative fury.