Tea Shop Sale

My next big sale is the first few days of December. A friend of mine has a great tea shop and we have an open house every year with my jewelery and her tea and cakes. Since she is also American and French, we have a lot of fun speaking Franglais, or Frenglish with our bilingual friends and customers who come to the show. These are silver pendants that will go on chains or neck wires,the stones are jelley opals from Madagascar, and a nice green chrysophrase.

METAL INCLINATIONS 2

Now this is really big news!
My Surplus Corn Lei was selected to be part of the international online exhibition
"METAL INCLINATIONS 2"
organized by The Society for Midwest Metalsmiths
check out the exhibition to see some really amazing contemporary jewelery!
http://smm-metalinclinations.org

More travels in the US, Ohio

More travels in the US

After California, we traveled to the midwest, and specifically to Columbus, Ohio, to visit my cousins, who live down the street from the Ohio Craft Museum. Lucky me! The museum was hosting -
"Dichotomies in Objects" Contemporary South African Jewelery from the Stellenbach Area. The work was all of great quality with much diversity in material, technique and concept. My favorite work was by Idane Burger and Ackeem Ngwenya. They both spoke to me of contemporary Africa, but not in too direct a manner. My photos are bad, but if you can always look back to http://www.velvetdavinci.com if you would like to see the entire show.

Gussie van der Merwe Jacomien Labuschagne
Nanette Nel

Travels in the US

Every 2 years or so we take a long trip to the USA to visit family and freinds and of course jewelery. This year we were on the west coast and I got to visit the VELVET DAVINCI gallery in San Francisco. How exciting. I took my daughter and we stayed for over an hour. They were in between exhibitions, but the permanent collections and showcases were full of amazingly creative, inovative, well crafted jewelery and sculpture. Here are a few photos of work I especially liked, (I should have taken about another million photos) I didn't buy any work, but I did buy the catalogue from "The Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelery"

Sebastian Buescher
Joanna Golberg

Anthony Tammaro

my free time

This is what I do when I'm not making jewelery or driving the kids around...

Contemporary Jewelery is Alive and Well in NZ

Les Arts Bougent
that means "The Arts Are Active", is the first visual arts promotional bi-monthly magazine in New Caledonia. It highlights local artists, art happenings, galeries and exhibitions, etc. As art jewelery is not a hot topic on my tiny island, I decided to write an article for the Sept-Oct issue of this wonderful publication, to share my views on contemporary art jewelery. Here is the article translated into English.

"Contemporary Jewelery is Alive and Well in New Zealand"
So why make contemporary jewelery in NC? So many people ask me that question. Because jewelery is universal. Humanity has forever needed to decorate itself. Jewelery speaks with a language of it's own. Each culture has it's own jewelery language, and contemporary art jewelery looks at and questions, challenges, recalls, teaches, and shares this language through inovation and creation. Another reason is to remind the community that local artists exist and need to be supported and encouraged. The last reason is that I LOVE JEWELERY! All kinds. I love to see what amazing new things jewelers, crafts people, and artists can do with jewelery, and I love to share this passion.
In other parts of the South Pacific, contemporary jewelery is alive and doing really well.
The strong New Zealand contemporary jewelery scene is creating a lot of talk on an international level. While using the language (techniques, materials, and strategies) of contemporary jewelery, these artists are asking questions about the identity of Maori and Pacific art and what it might evolve into in the future; begining with questioning the use of Maori or pacific island forms and materials to express a New Zealand identity.
The recent work moves away from trying to create powerful statements about identity, and begins to think about other aspects of jewelery and its history. Where the idea of identity is touched upon,it is done so less intensely, less directly, and with an aversion to using clichés and stereotypical symbols.
New Zealand contemporary jewelery has been called authentic in it's ability to combine a sense of past and place in a distinctive and skilled way.
The exhibition "A Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelery" is touring the United States. To have a look at the pieces in the exhibition, and other interesting work, check out one of the leading American galleries for contemporary jewelery
http://www.velvetdavinci.com/
Or you can go to the Tjibaou Cultural Center and see an incredible piece by Niki Hastings, which was used as one of the objects as starting point for the expo REBOUND, by the artists from SOAPART.

HOMO RELIGIOSUS EST

I've got some catching up to do, so we'll start with July.
The local association Homo-Sphere organized another art exhibition this year to correspond with the international fight against homophobia day. This years title and theme was

HOMO RELIGIOSUS EST

I thought this was a very daring and provocative subject. I was raised as a Catholic, so I thought I would do some reserch into what the Catholic church really thinks about homosexuality. Interestingly, homosexuals are allowed into the church and can participate in the mass, as long as they are not participating in any homosexual physical activity. I thought that was kind of a difficult place for someone to be in. The funny thing is that all Catholics are supposed to be practising chastity. Sexual intercourse for the sole purpose of making new baby Catholics. And how many babies can a woman actually have, 10 or so max. That would be a long life trying not to think about sex. But then basically all religions function in the same way. The Islamic and Judaic doctrines are basically the same. Not sex just for fun, enjoyment, pleasure, destressing...

So my reaction to all of this information was to create a chastity belt. Luckily I'm not religious in any way or else I would definetly have to wear one of these things to keep me on the staight and narrow path.

Anyway, the expo was a success with a lot of student work and work from some of the young people in the homosphere association. Local discussion groups where also organized, to talk about the Christian faith's views on the subject.

Here are a few pieces from the show BIJOUX COMMEMORATIVE

Médaille en Chocolate by Fabrice Ballay

Géométrie Variable, quartz blanc, pierre volcanic, chrome de fer, inox, laiton, bronze
by AKA

Lamp Number One by Franck ChanSan
Aude Wetterwald

Priére d'une addiction by Anne Laure Lagabrielle

Vinyl revisited by Anne Afendikov

Bijou de Famille by Nhu Machu

This piece is for Henry by Shelley Cavanaugh

Sensory Souvenir Brooches by Lydie Gardet

Adolescence by Laurence Lagabrielle

The Twins by Angelique Nicol

The False Path To Yellow Gold by Kris Bourcier

Opening night - La vernissage

The opening of the show was a huge success. There were at least a million people and everyone loved it. Smiles everywhere!

Gallery 11 and 1/2

Here are two views of the show. I think it looks really great and very fresh and inovative for Nouméa. The table was made just for the show, and if fills the entire space. Everyone came through with thoughtful, touching, interesting, and well made pieces. A huge thanks to Franck for his beautiful work on the table.

Bravo and thanks to all the participating artists

Kristine Bourcier, Franck Chan San, Laurence Lagabrielle, Lydie Gardet, Dominique Berton, Aka, Anne Afendikov, Anne Laure Lagabrielle, Angelique Nicol, Fabrice Ballay, Nhu Machu, Aude Wetterwald, Shelley Cavanaugh, Jo D'hage

Commemorative Jewelery Group Exhibition

The exhibition is finally coming together! We will install the show this weekend, and I will finally see everyones work completed.

I'm back, after a very long break. Won't go into the details of what I've been doing for the past 4 months, but I will show just a few pics.

My husband and I have started on a huge reforestation project on our land on the central, west coast of New Caledonia.

When I first saw the farm, I wasn't moved by it's beauty, but by it's desolation. (I am now completly in love with the dry forest and mangroves) We have recently found out that the trees had been cleared at least 50 or more years before, for cattlle grazing. But because the area is so dry to begin with, and because the wild deer population has gotten completly out of control, the area had turned into a dessert. The deer eat all the grass, down to it's roots, and they eat anything that grows, including any new trees.

So the first part of the project is to get rid of the deer. Not an easy task, and not done yet. Basically, they will be captured and sold to deer farmers, to eventually be butchered for meat.

The second part of the project is putting up the fences around a few bits of Ironwood forests that do exist, to see what will happen when they are left in peace, then to start plowing up the dry grass and weeds to start planting trees adapted to our soil and climate.

This is just the begining of years of planting and caring for the trees, and keeping the deer out.

Here are a few little reminders I made,

to remember that nature needs a helping hand, not a destructive one, and to eat more deer meat!