Old treasures to find new concepts

In today's lecture we had Mary Curtis come in to talk about her art practices with us.

As a jeweller, Mary is a collector. She likes to collect objects, and images of objects that will inspire her own work. She sees them, and thinks a lot about the way in which these objects are similar and at the same time, very different. Each of these objects have a sort of relationship with eachother as groups, and often the objects themelfs become a part of her own work too.

As she develops and forms new ideas to inform her own work, she often goes back to look at other jewellery made in other era's of time. This is to get new concepts and thoughts about her own art practice through other's ideas. This is definatly something useful to do, especially when you are not brimming with ideas. Many artists go back to think about art in historical periods, be it 1960 or 1860. By looking, it gives you so much opportunity to develop and re-arrange someone elses concept, to create your own fresh idea.

An example of this is the very small era called "post-modernism", where apon artists looked back and revived the use of heavilly ornamented objects. The Memphis design group, took old designs in furnature, and highly decorated them to form a very new concept, much different to the just passed modernist period of dull whites and blank spaces. Their concepts were new and they came from looking at the old. Seeing an idea and re-working it to make it their own.

I would definatly use this idea at times to form my work. There are some very interesting items out in the world's past which I like. Often the items which intregue me the most are displayed on programmes such as "The antiques road show". Small ornate pill and snuff boxes are something which I find to be inspiring to me. Vintage books are something which I like aswell because they always seemed to be very decorative with their borders. If I were to re-make this, I could scan in old images, and work them into my own art. Op shops also give me inspiration not only because of the objects themselfs, but also the atmosphere of going into an old shop. You are delving into a small piece of time, where there are old treasures, and piles of old books to be found.