(Ware)withal is the system I have imposed to understand my own anxieties around consumerism and natural landscape. Every living creature engages in the transaction of consumption and waste. While resources come from the landscape, it has a way of absorbing humankind’s content whether one is aware of it or not. When debris is discarded, it becomes integrated into the geologic processes and identity. We all leave objects behind after consumption, whether it be an item as fleeting as a single-use plastic bag or one as intimate as a body. Procuring precious resources, like metals, leaves the planet monumentally scarred. A statement in history lingers, told by our physical traces and material remains. These components reveal a collective, as well as personal identity, whose epilogue is translated through our environment. Contemporary jewelry and metals hold the potential to reflect collective identity while broadening its terminology beyond the mass produced, commercial industry.
What may our familiar landscapes look like in the future? What materials may become precious outside of cultural context? (Ware)withal is an exploration of these questions in metal, examining its role in preciousness historically and contemporarily, in interactive, wearable and functional formats. Each piece is designed to reflect the consumerist relationship we maintain with the natural environment. Much of my work is hammer formed, a process that manipulates hard material to endless possibilities. To finish my compositions I utilize traditional and contemporary metalsmithing techniques, as well as weaving/textile techniques, digital fabrication, and leather forming. Found, mass-produced, and handmade elements merge to adorn one another through application and imitation. At times, the scale or function of these objects impairs the user to convey the conceptual heaviness and dysfunction of waste accumulation. Constructing these wearable and functional objects of consumption allows me as a maker to explore these areas of personal anxiety and to share my observations.
(Ware)withal, 2021.