STRANGE OBJECTS CATHERINE LARGE
STRANGE OBJECTS A personal exploration of the nature of inheritance in jewellery and domestic objects
CATHERINE LARGE
CATHERINE LARGE Catherine Large is a jeweller and metalsmith whose practice encompasses silversmithing and vitreous enamelling. She began her studies at RMIT in Melbourne, and completed her Bachelor of Visual Art at the Sydney College of the Arts. She is a Lecturer and the First Year Convenor in Jewellery and Small Objects within the Fine Art Degree at QCA, and was Co-Chair of Participation + Exchange, the 15th Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia Biennial Conference in July 2013. Catherine has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, making work that draws upon her experiences of travel and the nature of ‘stuff’, both inherited and collected. She remains particularly interested in objects and flatware, a focus of her original training. Catherine has been the recipient of a number of grants, and her work is held in private and public collections. She currently serves on the board of the Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Queensland.
The objects featured in this exhibition are submitted as partial completion towards the award of Master of Visual Arts at the Queensland College of Art (QCA), Griffith University.
STRANGE OBJECTS How often does a piece of art speak to you? For me, a work of art is a piece that captures your attention and demands that you connect with it. Its demand might be a rigorous shaking of your consciousness or a soft whisper in your ear that compels you to engage. It was with a soft yet insistent voice that Catherine Large’s Strange Objects spoke to me. I am not usually a purveyor of jewellery, but a particular piece of jewellery within Strange Objects invited me to further explore this collection. It is not just a random collection of jewellery, flatware, and objects, but a congruity of pieces that are rich in meaning, signifying delicious moments from times past that draw you in for closer inspection. The body of work is perhaps best encapsulated in Parts of a Whole (2015), where a glass bottle lip is reframed as a stand holding a simple sterling silver cup. Such a combination of materials pulls your gaze along uneven curves in a discovery of unexpected works of art. This juxtaposition of material and composition leaves you wanting to reach out and engage with surface textures and form.
Large’s Strange Things series is a collection of separate, yet significant, pieces from a life lived, brought together and repurposed into something beautiful. Rustic metal objects combine with delicate silver in Strange Things 9 (2013–15). Other materials, including mother of pearl, gold, bronze, and waxed linen, from equally contrasting places such as Paris and the Coolaburragundy River in NSW, serve to inform this collection, each with their own story to tell. With its reusing and recycling of materials to create precious objects, Large's collection is a quiet comment about not disregarding broken and discarded fragments, but treasuring them as memories. Large takes these items and creates works of art with them. She respectfully handles the history of the pieces and, with careful consideration, lovingly crafts them into things of beauty.
The history behind the piece of jewellery that originally captured my attention was what impelled me to explore Strange Objects. Its meaning, and my initial connection with it, made sense in a manner that is difficult to capture in words. However, the most compelling reason for me to want to become intimately acquainted with this particular item from Strange Objects was quite simply because it spoke to me, and it was beautiful. If you listen carefully, the beauty to be found in Strange Objects will speak to you too. Faith Valencia-Forrester Lecturer Radio and Video Journalism Project Safe Space Coordinator Griffith University
The memories contained within this collection do not just belong to Large. In If the Shoe Fits (2015), a sterling silver shoehorn handle is refashioned into a pendant that reminds me of my time spent in Japan. Large’s use of linen is a textured representation of the collection as a whole: beauty is found in the uneven and unusual nature of the works themselves. What makes these pieces so compelling is discovering the history and meaning behind each of the individual items used in their construction. They are the parts of the whole, if you will.
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Shadows of a Former Life 2011, three sterling silver brooches Two Rings 2011, sterling silver Family Archaeology: Conversations with a Salt Cellar (brooch) 2011, sterling silver, vitreous enamel 4
Images of My Mother 2013, sterling silver brooch with 18ct gold and vitreous enamel Shall We Eat? 2013, sterling silver knives with re-used Sheffield steel dinner and fruit knife blades 5
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Strange Things 1 2013–15 Left to Right
1. Impression of a sugar spoon and part of a metal adornment, possibly from clothing or a belt. 2. Maple leaf picture hook that belonged to my husband’s grandfather who fought in the Canadian Army in WW1. 3. Silver container with snake emblem, origin and use unknown, possibly medical. Inherited from my great-aunt, 1986. 4. Emperor Hirohito tin whistle from WW2. Belonged to my husband’s grandmother. 5. Cast-iron architectural ornament, Brisbane.
Strange Things 2 2013–15 Left to Right
1. Metal pulley. 2. Metal washer from canvas tent, possibly 1940s. Found in Anzac Park, Toowong, Brisbane, 2014. 3. Bronze grommet. 4. Lead sinker from a collection belonging to my husband. Possibly found on Peel Island, Moreton Bay, ca. 1993. 5. Old copper washer.
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Strange Things 3 2013–15 Left to Right
1. Fanta lid (Cyrillic text), from a bottle purchased in Moscow, 1989. 2. Moscow souvenir badge depicting St Basil’s Church (Cyrillic text), purchased in Moscow, 1989. 3. Tin lid that reads “PIERCE HERE THEN LEVER OPEN”. 4. Red plastic 1950s button. Gift from a friend, 1980s. 5. ‘Nifty’ sterling silver shirt stud. Inherited from my father-in-law.
Strange Things 4 2013–15 Left to Right
1. Moonstone bead with gold findings from my mother’s jewellery box. Origin unknown, came into my possession, 2009. 2. My hair, ca. 1988, with lorikeet feather from my Sydney garden, re-purposed from another artwork. 3. ‘Thank you Robert Baines’– precision exercise, made during the first year of my undergraduate degree, 1983. Nickel silver cube intersected with a brass rod. 4. Tumbled glass ring from a bottle, purchased in Camberwell Market in Melbourne, 1980s. 5. Prized red blood-reel marble from the 1920s. Inherited by my husband from his mother’s marble bag collection.
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Strange Things 5 2013–15 Left to Right
1. ‘Moscow Great City’ souvenir badge (Cyrillic text), purchased in Moscow, 1989. 2. Vietnamese 5 Dong Coin dated 1971. Inherited from my father in 2008, who brought it back from Vietnam after his last tour as a Team Leader of Volunteer Medical Specialists (Surgical Teams) in Bien Hoa, Vietnam, 1972. 3. Yugoslavian 20 Dinar coin, collected as change in Yugoslavia, 1990. 4. Half-penny coin (date indecipherable) from Anzac Park, Toowong. 5. Indian silver 2 Paisa coin, dated 1891, embellished with decorated edge and with signs that it was possibly used as one of a pair of cufflinks, collected in India, 1983.
Strange Things 6 2013–15 Left to Right
1. Bronze ornament collected from the ground in Paris in Pere Lachaise Cimetière, ca. 1990. 2. Floriate Bronze ornament collected from the ground in Paris in Pere Lachaise Cimetière, ca. 1990. 3. Bullet, collected from Anzac Cove, Gallipoli. 4. Exploded bullet shell from a Match Rifle shot by my uncle at a target in Woomera in 1993. 5. Tin Hat Appeal RSL Fund raiser. Inherited from my husband’s grandmother.
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Strange Things 7 2013–15 Left to Right
1. Stainless steel tip of a vein stripper. Inherited from my father on his retirement from his surgical practice. 2. Part of bottle, found at a bottle dump Dunolly, Victoria. 3. Ruskin pottery brooch, made from glaze sample, with broken clasp. Inherited from my great-aunt, 1987. 4. Earring from Israel. Gift from my oldest friend, 1982. 5. ‘Nifty’ pointed sterling silver shirt stud. Inherited from my father-in-law.
Strange Things 8 2013–15 Left to Right
1. Comrades of the Great War, numbered badge. Belonged to my husband’s grandfather. 2. Bullet Shell, 1940s. Anzac Park, Toowong. 3. Neillo butterfly cufflink. Found in my husband’s grandmother’s effects. 4. Burmese 25 Pyas coin, 1963. 5. Glass bead from Ancient Thira (Santorini, Greece). Collected 1989.
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Strange Things 9 2013–2015 Left to right
1. Pottery shard collected during travels in Asia. 2. Keyhole plate, Brisbane. 3. Plumb-bob, origin unknown, found in our garden in Brisbane. 4. Iron horse bit, Simpson’s Falls, Brisbane. 5. ‘Sunbeam’ broad tooth shearing comb, found on the bank of the Coolaburragundy River at Coolah, NSW, 2014.
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Small Portrait of Domestic Life (pendant) 2014, sterling silver, mother-of-pearl button, waxed linen thread
Time Passing (pendant) 2014, sterling silver, motherof-pearl fan piece, waxed linen thread 15
3 Pendants 2015 Left to right
Spiral Pendant, re-purposed steel button, sterling silver, fine silver, red beading silk Shirty II Pendant, re-purposed mother-of-pearl shirt stud, sterling silver, red beading silk Pendulum Pendant, sterling silver, mild steel, black beading silk 6 Spoons 2015, sterling silver
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Vessel 2015, sterling silver, pure silver, re-purposed glass bottle neck
Parts of a Whole (bowl and stand) 2015, sterling silver, pure silver, re-purposed glass bottle lip
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Shirty Pendant 2015, re-purposed 9ct gold shirt stud, linen-impressed sterling silver, waxed linen thread
If the Shoe Fits (pendant) 2015, re-purposed sterling silver shoe horn handle (hallmarked Birmingham 1907), bronze grave ornament, 18ct gold, waxed linen thread 18
Bowl and Stand 2015, sterling silver, pure silver, re-purposed glass vase base 19
© 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system), without permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-925455-02-1 Published on the occasion of the exhibition Strange Objects, shown in the Small Object Space at artisan, 1 March–9 April 2016. 381 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006 Australia www.artisan.org.au
Small Object Space (SOS) is presented by artisan in partnership with Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art (QCA). This gallery space aims to showcase QCA’s best small object and jewellery work that engages with mediums or concepts relevant to artisan’s craft and design focus. SOS’s exhibition program features the work of the QCA’s students, staff, and alumni in solo and group exhibitions selected by representatives of both artisan and the QCA.
Supervisor Elizabeth Shaw
Foreword Faith Valencia-Forrester
Photographer Michelle Bowden
Editor Evie Franzidis
Catalogue design by Hannah Faleafa at Liveworm South Bank Thanks to Griffith Centre for Creative Arts Research
artisan is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, the Australia Council, the Commonwealth Government’s Arts Funding and Advisory Body and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments.
F ront and back cover Catherine Large Strange Things Collection 2013–15
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