/// WHY I DO WHAT I DO? ///
More in my little series of the how, what’s where whys; this one has many answers but I will remain brief for this post.
The main answer is I feel this is what I am supposed to be doing. I’ve always been creative and dabbled in many different mediums but as soon as I started with silver it just felt right, like I had found the right medium.; using my hands and tools, creating things from my imagination. The connection between head, hands and heart.
I enjoy the problem solving that making an object with a utilitarian function throws at you. I have a constant internal struggle with making larger pieces with no function, just sculptural, as I feel my creations need a utilitarian purpose to justify their existence. Silver and gold cost a lot,I know my pieces are an investment so I want to make sure they can be enjoyed and used for generations to come. I love art and sculpture but personally I need my designs to be something to be used, I feel really uncomfortable making pieces which are sculptural and to be enjoyed aesthetically rather than used, although I absolutely adore pieces like this myself and wish I could loosen up enough to create those myself. Yes it is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about but that’s a whole other story.
When I am in my studio the outside world ceases to exist. The silver forces my mind to slow and my attention to focus, to absorb myself in the present, the task in hand. And that is priceless.
This leads me onto teaching - I love what I do so much that I want to share it as much as possible. Helping someone make something and learn new skills is great. The icing on the cake is they start to relax, breathe, think about only themselves for a while, and get the benefit of handling such an amazing material full of energy, and at the end they have something they can feel really proud of. It’s the best.
So I guess the answer to why I do what I do is either because I love it so much, or that I’m addicted and should really seek some help but we’ll stick with the former…
