Balance is a collection of hand-forged rocks. Some are jewellery designed to be worn, and at the end of the day, the wearer returns them to the stack along with the ‘weight of the day.’ Each group functions as an object of contemplation to enhance well-being.
Over the past years, I’ve tried to find a way of talking about mental health by exploring the relationship between making and well-being; how the two belong hand in hand. I’ve made something that brings that idea together in a way that I believe can help other people as my craft grows and I continue to work at the problems that affect all of us.
It’s the moment of interaction I’m trying to capture with my hand-forged rocks and pieces of jewellery. When making art sometimes it will just fall apart, and you have to stack it up again. Balancing the rocks, creating, and recreating impermanent art reflects the process of both making art and of what it means to be human. We are never truly in control, and nothing lasts forever.
Make, heal, and grow.
Inspiration
Mental health is a subject that has become very important to me after my own recent experiences. In addition, I’ve always been good at knowing when one of my friends isn’t doing alright and talking to people about their problems.
When it came to my own mental health, I was woefully ill-prepared; when one of my friends got hurt, I spent a lot of time blaming myself for what happened every now and again. Not knowing how to help that is what eats away at me.
Art brought me back to a new normal, specifically the meditative practice of rock balancing, which helped me balance what had happened with getting better. I was learning to move on and find a way to help others with my art, as it helped me.
Process
Beginning making was a lot of fun. I would arrive at the forge and make what came to mind focusing on types of rock from nature. Free-form making was also therapeutic recreating: sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic, granite, flint, quartz, silver, iron, coal and many more. After weeks of making rocks of all shapes and sizes, I got it down to a fine art and got into a “flow”. They call the art of making complex things look simple “Sprezzatura.”
Experimentation
Much of my time on this project was spent trying new things and learning how to adapt the steel to different forms and texter to find the balance of natural rock texture and feel. Over the next four months, I made about 150 other rocks, all unique with their floors and folts that made them even more real.
After I’d made a few, I told some other students to have fun with them, so I was constantly finding them in odd configurations and neat stacks. That’s when I knew I wanted people to have a chance to mess with them and interact with the very tactile surfaces I’d created.
After making a large body of work, I looked at refining the project into something more marketable, and that showed my off skill from six years a bit better without losing what made the project unique.
So I looked back at what I’d done and thought about how to add something to draw the eye of makers and other blacksmiths. I settled on flowers as they would be recognisable to most people and would test my skill as a smith.
At some point around this time, I had a great talk with one of the guest speakers who suggested finding some way of making them into art jewellery. This would be one of the founding moments of “Balance. I thought it was at least worth a try.
I also got a chance to try enamelling for the first time. I think it’s a fantastic way of adding colour to an otherwise black-and-grey project.
They said at uni that work isn’t finished until properly photographed, and after seeing them in situ, I have to agree. Professionalism was a big part of how I wanted to portray myself going forward with shows and other events. It was important to show what I can do in the best light.
