Make Your Mark
A collection of rings that were the result of an exploration of a ring’s journey with a wearer. For the most part the journey is invisible and intangible. However, the Make your mark rings have been cast with an outer skin of crayon. In the process of being worn the crayon leaves its mark on the world slowly disappearing and revealing glimpses of the pattern to the wearer; over time the ring will fully reveal its pattern to the wearer, and there will only be a trace of the crayon that once covered the exterior surface.
Nellie Peoples, 2016, sterling silver interior, black crayon exterior, Image: Faun Photography
My expectation of the crayon covered rings is that they be a catalyst for thought and conversation. My hope for the viewer/wearer is that they respond to the desire for exploration and the feeling of curiosity that is too often trained out of us over a lifetime. I want them to break with the expected socio cultural norms of gallery spaces and interact with the object and in some ways destroy it. The objects will become richer for their participation. The viewer/wearer would take the ring on a journey and this concept in my work is played out in a literal way as they "map", more likely scribble, across the page/table in front of them. The "journey" in this sense is made visible but in doing so allows the wearer to think about the in-visible. The use of crayon is used for its mark making capacity that reminds us of a sense of play and potentially mischievous play.
In the process of interaction, the crayon will wear as a consequence of it's tracing a journey onto its surrounding environment. As the object is worn the ring begins to reveal something of itself to the wearer; it wears away its skin to reveal something more beautiful.
Nellie Peoples, 2016, sterling silver interior, black crayon exterior
Nellie Peoples, 2016, sterling silver interior, green/yellow/red/black crayon exterior, Image: Faun Photography
Object exhibited at Bilk Gallery, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 2016; at an exhibition presented by Jewellery and Metalsmiths Group, Queensland chapter, Trace, Woolloongabba Art, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 2016; exhibited at Adorned Space, Society of North American Goldsmiths, New Orleans, United States of America, 2017.
