Jewellery & Metal (MA)
Lara Hirst
Her practice is concerned with the relationship between the Material and Immaterial, and although highly conceptual is realised through the crafting of objects. She addresses themes of a human nature and where subject or emphasis may vary, it is the trend of reduction that remains consistent throughout.
EDUCATION
2018 - 2020 Royal College of Art, London
MA (RCA) with Distinction - Jewellery and Metal.
2013 - 2017 Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh
First Class Degree BA Honours - Fine Art Sculpture
AWARDS
2020 The Goldsmith Company Precious Metals Grant
2018 - 2020 The Griffin Scholarship Royal college of Art, London
2018 Robert Callender International Residency ForYoung Artists -
Invited for2018 residency at The Sealoft
2018 RSA Art Prize,The Royal Scottish Accademy
2017 - 2018 The John Byrne Award selected works - Oct, Nov, Dec
2107 Higgs Commission - The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh
2017 Astaire Prize winner
2017 Edinburgh University Collections Acquisition Award
2017 Andrew Grant Bequest
EXHIBITIONS
2019 Matter-Morphosis, Dyson Gallery, London
2018 RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2017 Shored against Ruin Exhibition, Edinburgh University Collections
2017 Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show, Edinburgh
2016 ECA/RCA - Across Borders Exhibition, Dyson Gallery, London
Contact
What’s it all about?
I come to an art form which is perhaps not recognised as such. Jewellery; so much more than precious metals and precious stones; so much more than decoration and adornment and yet so much a part of all of those things.
These are objects in which the relationship between what is material and immaterial becomes entwined, in which forms and platforms of and for value become entangled.“Jewels are concentrations of matter”*; a “concentration of values”*; they seek “to take that potential for meaning all the way down to the smallest, the miniature unit”* and such may offer “powerful metaphorical representation”* within the clarity of expression. “values become condensed and enriched in miniature.”* And it is this that draws me, like so many others, to jewellery and to the minute scale at which I have been working.
Yet the miniature and the wearable, taken as extremes, seem to stand in opposition to one another. One asks for fragility and the other for strength in its form. One hides, the other reveals. And so, I have searched endlessly to find a balance between these two conditions of the jewellery object, asking: How do I reduce things to “the smallest, the miniature unit” without loosing them entirely? How do I reach that point of extreme poignancy and clarity before everything disappears? How do I make objects at once material and immaterial?
Gold has been key to this discussion - a material of such physical and metaphysical weight that so very little is needed to say so very much. It is one of just two material elements that I present in this body of work.The other is hair.
But hopefully you shall see that neither is my subject. Because, it’s not about gold and it’s not about hair. It’s about what those things represent. Where they lead, either to or from, where they begin and end and ultimately become one. It’s about the relationship between people and places, platforms of value, and states of being.
The link.
*Unger, M. and Leeuwen, S., 2017. Jewellery Matters. Rotterdam: nai010 publishers.
*Ibid
*Boyd, J., 2020.The Urgency Of The Miniature.
*Ibid
* Bachelard, G. and Jolas, M., 1994.The Poetics Of Space. Boston: Beacon Press.
It all started with my desire to make a necklace. A locket of sorts. A simple chain of hollow links, each link containing a strand of hair. And so, in totality - placed at the objects core - contained within and also throughout, is ‘The Lock of Hair’. No longer the object of display, it becomes an object of quiet intimacy*, protected and preserved, hidden and held, such that Jewellery is presented as a receptacle, a container of meaning and memories and things beyond itself. In the act of internal* concealment we are drawn away from perception and towards apperception - and from seeing to knowing.
The hair that is held belongs to my nana, and the neck that gives the chain its precise measurements and upon which it will finally rest is my own.What would appear to be standardised is in fact highly personalised. It is jewellery that satisfies the wearer and perhaps, even preferably, no one else besides. For the association of adornment is denied within its simplified form. It avoids attention. It’s nearly not there.
“she was nearly not there”
The trace of a loved one taking the form of a simple trace chain, with each link looping through the next before being closed.The relative thickness of the tubing and diameter of the links has been calculated so as ensure their strength, given that soldering cannot be used.To heat the link would burn the hair. It is within the minuteness of my work that I have been able to achieve the balance between material strength and apparent delicacy. And that ‘minuteness’ is something which I have held onto throughout, perhaps even striven towards, pushing material to a point of a non existence. Or rather attempting to define its existence as existing elsewhere.
* According to poet and philosopher Gaston Bachelard “the gentle warmth of enclosed regions is the first indication of intimacy”. Bachelard, G. (1994).The poetics of space. Boston: Beacon Press.
* We follow our belief in the centrality of things, and the ancient model of idealism, essentialism, and platonic realism - the notion that there is a core truth and meaning; an essential origin to existence - and we apply these ideas to the object inside so that it becomes the ideal of itself. It is here that we believe we will find the point clarity, where values become condensed and essences reside.
The hair that is held belongs to my nana, and the neck that gives the chain its precise measurements and upon which it will finally rest is my own.What would appear to be standardised is in fact highly personalised. It is jewellery that satisfies the wearer and perhaps, even preferably, no one else besides. For the association of adornment is denied within its simplified form. It avoids attention. It’s nearly not there.
“she was nearly not there”
The trace of a loved one taking the form of a simple trace chain, with each link looping through the next before being closed.The relative thickness of the tubing and diameter of the links has been calculated so as ensure their strength, given that soldering cannot be used.To heat the link would burn the hair. It is within the minuteness of my work that I have been able to achieve the balance between material strength and apparent delicacy. And that ‘minuteness’ is something which I have held onto throughout, perhaps even striven towards, pushing material to a point of a non existence. Or rather attempting to define its existence as existing elsewhere.
* According to poet and philosopher Gaston Bachelard “the gentle warmth of enclosed regions is the first indication of intimacy”. Bachelard, G. (1994).The poetics of space. Boston: Beacon Press.
* We follow our belief in the centrality of things, and the ancient model of idealism, essentialism, and platonic realism - the notion that there is a core truth and meaning; an essential origin to existence - and we apply these ideas to the object inside so that it becomes the ideal of itself. It is here that we believe we will find the point clarity, where values become condensed and essences reside.
Medium:
24 ct gold, hair of 'Nana'Size:
420 mm total length - 254 individual links formed in gold tubing 0.3mm outer diameter 0.05mm wall thickness
A brooch - a square of black chainmail pinned to the chest, worn over the heart*, and containing a lock of hair. A unity of strength and delicacy which, in its reference to armour, leads us to ask “who is being protected?”. The relevance of the brooch lies in the fact that it is not only public facing but vocal, unashamedly self aware, it speaks, and it declares. It is my intention that, with the passing of time, the black, a thin layer of rhodium plating, will wear away revealing its true material as gold, marking the transition from mourning to celebration; form following function; jewellery mirroring life. A declaration of remembrance in both states. This time the lock of hair is my own. For, in the tradition of mourning jewellery, it is the subject of the jewel who is responsible for its commission and gifting. It has been claimed that “man is the only creature that is conscious of its inevitable death...aware of its finitude”* and within this, that actively seeks to extend the reach of his or her own life. The Lock of hair, as embedded in the jewel, enables one to exist not only in multiple spaces and multiple times, simultaneously and eternally, but to collapse the distance between people, to exist with and for others: “giving oneself ”*. And if I am giving away a part of myself - to be eternalised and pinned proudly upon the chest of another - I want to be viewed, held and remembered in a perfect form. For we can exist in death in ways we did not in life. The geometry of the square is a move towards this (whilst alluding to the box and the concept of containment that it upholds ) but this alone would fail to acknowledge that chainmaille is a whole made of parts, and those are parts of me.The links too must be perfect in their number. According to Euclid such “perfect numbers” do exist.They are few and far between but 496 is one that allows me to achieve a perfectly scaled square of golden links. 16 columns and 16 rows of 4 in 1 weave.
When released from the pin these links come into their own. No longer held in tension, they move freely past one another.The square gives way and so too does its shielding quality.The relationship between wearer and worn is reversed so that we are moved to acknowledge the life of the object apart from the body that it adorns - and consequently the life within.
*As the saying goes,“Those we hold closest to our hearts never truly leave us”
*Watson, G. (2014). Philosophy of emptiness. London: Reaktion Books Ltd
* Mauss, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. (1967).The gift. NewYork: Norton.
When released from the pin these links come into their own. No longer held in tension, they move freely past one another.The square gives way and so too does its shielding quality.The relationship between wearer and worn is reversed so that we are moved to acknowledge the life of the object apart from the body that it adorns - and consequently the life within.
*As the saying goes,“Those we hold closest to our hearts never truly leave us”
*Watson, G. (2014). Philosophy of emptiness. London: Reaktion Books Ltd
* Mauss, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. (1967).The gift. NewYork: Norton.
Medium:
24 ct gold, rhodium plating, hair of artistSize:
50 mm x 50 mm square consisting of 496 Individual links gold tubing 0.4mm outer diameter 0.05mm wall thickness
An earring - the familiar arc of an eyelash, encapsulated in gold, hidden under the fold of the upper ear.
Waiting. How could so much hope rest upon this tiny object? This thing*?
As back far as I can remember I’ve wished upon a fallen eyelash. I’ve placed it atop my little finger and blown it away in the belief it could make right and fix wrong. It is an object which exists on the very threshold of materiality, and one I could not help but claim.
But what minimal alteration would render this object wearable? How had it been held by the body before it had fallen? The follicle. I found that I could create my own using the process of granulation, burying the length of tubing into my charcoal block, so that only that which remained above would ball up with the flicker of my torch.The arc below remaining both attached and intact, ready to receive the lash and the wish it would in time give way to.
* According to Elizabeth Grosz, the ‘thing’ is formed “the moment the thing and the space around it are differentiated conceptually or perceptually.” channeling a somewhat Heideggerian notion of ‘becoming’;“only what conjoins itself out of the world becomes a thing” (Heidegger)
Waiting. How could so much hope rest upon this tiny object? This thing*?
As back far as I can remember I’ve wished upon a fallen eyelash. I’ve placed it atop my little finger and blown it away in the belief it could make right and fix wrong. It is an object which exists on the very threshold of materiality, and one I could not help but claim.
But what minimal alteration would render this object wearable? How had it been held by the body before it had fallen? The follicle. I found that I could create my own using the process of granulation, burying the length of tubing into my charcoal block, so that only that which remained above would ball up with the flicker of my torch.The arc below remaining both attached and intact, ready to receive the lash and the wish it would in time give way to.
* According to Elizabeth Grosz, the ‘thing’ is formed “the moment the thing and the space around it are differentiated conceptually or perceptually.” channeling a somewhat Heideggerian notion of ‘becoming’;“only what conjoins itself out of the world becomes a thing” (Heidegger)
Medium:
24 ct gold, eyelashSize:
11mm length, gold tubing 0.4mm outer diameter 0.075mm wall thickness
A clasp - a tiny section of gold tube, serving to bring the ends of a single strand of hair together such that it can be worn around the neck as a necklace.The gold sits at the nape of the neck as a tactile reminder of its presence, referencing and replacing the knot of hair that gathers on the clasp of a much worn necklace. The hair now moves to the front where it becomes the object of display. It is a piece which speaks of the transformative power of gold and how very little is needed to turn life into jewellery; to give something value; to make something precious. Here, weight and mass do not equate.
Medium:
24 ct gold- to be reworked in micro alloyed gold - assayed at 24 ctSize:
4mm length, gold tubing 0.26mm outer diameter 0.05mm wall thickness
I had been handed a wedding ring and been asked to rework it. But as I held this ring in my hand “I experienced that an object made of gold can have both an alluring and repellent aura at the same time”*, that “the quality that makes a stranger’s wedding ring special is not merely material or formal in nature. Beyond that it is the intimacy of the other that seems to adhere to it, that collides, in a certain sense, with the surface of one’s own body.”* It collided not only with the surface of my skin but with the very nature of its own being.You see, it was the product of a divorce. I knew It had to bereleased from its form, and I knew it was not my place to do so.
So I returned the ring to the hand from which it had come. I invited Stewart to the studio at which I was working and I provided him with a chisel. He struck the metal, breaking the the infinitely circling band of gold, freeing it of its false claim at eternity and the system of exchange it was bound by and to; knowing that with this object and this act he would release himself. I straightened the ring, reaffirming its transformation, giving it the pronounced beginning and end that itslength now owned. And I put it back in its box.
Because “one shouldn’t trifle with gold”*
It was this object and this statement that brought me to The Royal College of Ar t. I was a sculpture student, I had neither the skill nor the right to take it any further.
Now, as a student of jewellery and metal I have come to view Stewart’s ring in a different light: A ring from a divorce - only 9 carats out of a possible 24; “brass with a bit of gold in it” as they refer to it in the trade. And so you will see how I am able to extend the metaphor that its physicality had first presented. Stewart’s marriage was not a happy one, it was weak and it failed, but it gave him three children. Alex. Eva. Matthew. It was “brass with a bit of gold in it.” It is my intention to part that gold from its alloy, to form three intertwining links, each one holding a single strand of hair. Alex. Eva. Matthew. These links are to be threaded onto a brooch pin, formed of the remaining alloy, 645mm in length, referring back to that initial act - the finite line born from the infinite circle - acknowledging the whole of which they are a part.
*Burkhardt, J. (2013). Here Jewels Maketh Not The Man. In: Hufnagl,F. ed., Otto Kunzli - The Book, 1st ed. Stuttgart: Arnoldsche.
* Ibid
*Kunzli,O.(2013) in Hufnagl,F.Otto Kunzli -The Book.1st ed.Stuttgart:Arnoldsche.
So I returned the ring to the hand from which it had come. I invited Stewart to the studio at which I was working and I provided him with a chisel. He struck the metal, breaking the the infinitely circling band of gold, freeing it of its false claim at eternity and the system of exchange it was bound by and to; knowing that with this object and this act he would release himself. I straightened the ring, reaffirming its transformation, giving it the pronounced beginning and end that itslength now owned. And I put it back in its box.
Because “one shouldn’t trifle with gold”*
It was this object and this statement that brought me to The Royal College of Ar t. I was a sculpture student, I had neither the skill nor the right to take it any further.
Now, as a student of jewellery and metal I have come to view Stewart’s ring in a different light: A ring from a divorce - only 9 carats out of a possible 24; “brass with a bit of gold in it” as they refer to it in the trade. And so you will see how I am able to extend the metaphor that its physicality had first presented. Stewart’s marriage was not a happy one, it was weak and it failed, but it gave him three children. Alex. Eva. Matthew. It was “brass with a bit of gold in it.” It is my intention to part that gold from its alloy, to form three intertwining links, each one holding a single strand of hair. Alex. Eva. Matthew. These links are to be threaded onto a brooch pin, formed of the remaining alloy, 645mm in length, referring back to that initial act - the finite line born from the infinite circle - acknowledging the whole of which they are a part.
*Burkhardt, J. (2013). Here Jewels Maketh Not The Man. In: Hufnagl,F. ed., Otto Kunzli - The Book, 1st ed. Stuttgart: Arnoldsche.
* Ibid
*Kunzli,O.(2013) in Hufnagl,F.Otto Kunzli -The Book.1st ed.Stuttgart:Arnoldsche.
Medium:
9 ct gold wedding band, hair of Alex, Eva and MatthewSize:
645mm brooch pin, 3 interlocking gold links each at 5.5mm diameter
The subject of Mother and Child is as strong in art as in life.
It was an intuitive act.
Two links - one big, one small - circling one another.
Gifted on Mothering Sunday.
It was an intuitive act.
Two links - one big, one small - circling one another.
Gifted on Mothering Sunday.
Medium:
24 ct gold, hair of mother, hair of childSize:
2 interlocking links, 3mm and 2.25mm outer diameter, gold tubing 0.3mm outer diameter 0.05mm wall thickness
A necklace - consisting of thousands of tiny gold links threaded onto a single strand of hair, concealing the very thing that gives the them their form and which holds them all together. Without that strand of hair, without its sentiment, the necklace cannot exist and function as such.
Because Jewellery is always reliant upon something other. And that something is both extremely strong and extremely fragile.
Because Jewellery is always reliant upon something other. And that something is both extremely strong and extremely fragile.
Medium:
24 ct gold, single strand of hairSize:
480mm total length
A hundred of my golden links awaiting exchange. What will I receive in return for a part of me, my craft and my gold?
Medium:
18 ct gold, hair of artistSize:
100 links each at 2.6mm outer diameter, gold tubing 0.3mm outer diameter 0.05mm wall thickness
Kintsukuroi is a Japanese method of repairing ceramics, literally translating as “gold repair” - “kint” - “gold, “sukuroi” - “repair”. Its origin lies with the tea ceremony, it is said that a Japanese emperor had broken his tea bowl and sent it back to china to be repaired.The bowl was stapled as tradition and returned to the emperor, but he was dismayed by the brutality of the act which marked the bowl as flawed in its damage, contesting the Japanese aesthetic and way of life termed “Wabi-Sabi”, and which may be summarised as the appreciation of imperfection; the celebration of damage as a sign of the life of an object. The Japanese developed a method of repair using Urishi Laquer, adding gold dust to the final application so as to highlight the fault lines as things of beauty, recognising them as adding to the value of the object along with significance and craftsmanship in repair.
“Hair tells us something about the state one’s “head” is in”. Hair loss is never a good sign. It is shameful to shed ones hair - to pull it from the plughole, to tease its from a comb, to lift it from a surface to which it does not belong.The thinning of hair marks illness, trauma, grief. It is something we hide from others and sometimes ourselves. But what if we were to acknowledge this loss, to mark its significance and raise it to a point of value? What if I were to insert a golden hair in place of one I had shed?
*Ronnberg, A. and Martin, K., 2010. The Book Of Symbols. Köln:Taschen.
“Hair tells us something about the state one’s “head” is in”. Hair loss is never a good sign. It is shameful to shed ones hair - to pull it from the plughole, to tease its from a comb, to lift it from a surface to which it does not belong.The thinning of hair marks illness, trauma, grief. It is something we hide from others and sometimes ourselves. But what if we were to acknowledge this loss, to mark its significance and raise it to a point of value? What if I were to insert a golden hair in place of one I had shed?
*Ronnberg, A. and Martin, K., 2010. The Book Of Symbols. Köln:Taschen.
Medium:
24 ct goldSize:
to be determined
It was one of only three perfect golden links I had formed. I threaded my hair inside, pushing it gently with my tweezers along the arced length before closing the link to - flexing the metal, pushing the ends gently passed each other so that they were held in their tension. I tapped it with my finger, pressing it against a strip of leather, fixing the kink which had formed at the pivot before placing it upon the surface of my charcoal block. I lit my flame and I watched the link ‘ball up'; the forming of a perfect sphere from a perfect circle in perfect untarnished gold, unaffected by the flame that had stolen it of its form, gleaming against the inky backdrop.
And I smiled, somehow believing I had cheated both chemistry and physics, performed some act of magic, alchemy even, trapping the hair with the speed of my deceit and the betrayal of my flame. Surely it had not escaped, surely it had not been harmed.
“Compressed inside its small retrial self, the genie of meaning, captured by the artist, is released by a viewer, who willingly participates in the mysteries of making.”*
But perhaps, “The image that belongs to us alone, we do not want to communicate; we only give its picturesque details. Its very core, however, is our own, and we should never want to tell all there is to tell about it.”*
*Fariello, M. and Owen, P. (2004) Objects and meaning. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. *Bachelard, G. (1994).The poetics of space. Boston: Beacon Press.
And I smiled, somehow believing I had cheated both chemistry and physics, performed some act of magic, alchemy even, trapping the hair with the speed of my deceit and the betrayal of my flame. Surely it had not escaped, surely it had not been harmed.
“Compressed inside its small retrial self, the genie of meaning, captured by the artist, is released by a viewer, who willingly participates in the mysteries of making.”*
But perhaps, “The image that belongs to us alone, we do not want to communicate; we only give its picturesque details. Its very core, however, is our own, and we should never want to tell all there is to tell about it.”*
*Fariello, M. and Owen, P. (2004) Objects and meaning. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. *Bachelard, G. (1994).The poetics of space. Boston: Beacon Press.