Tania Dibbs

Jewelry-Inspired Sculpture

 

Weaving a small sculptural piece
Weaving a small sculptural piece

Making jewelry feels very sculptural. I don’t enjoy making a piece twice but I do love designing. Though I plan to wear the finished pieces, I often don’t get around to it, and they end up being given away or piling up in my closet where no one gets to see them. And who needs 30 pounds of jewelry, anyway?

Batiked bone bracelet
Batiked bone bracelet
Leather necklace with water buffalo horn, recycled glass and beads
Leather necklace with water buffalo horn, recycled glass and beads
work table
Work table

How could I bring these pieces into the world to be seen? I could make an installation out of them….. no, that would be just trying to validate them as art by putting them into an accepted format that is differentiated from craft. This brings up the question of where and how sculpture fits into the world. What is its place? Some sculptures live on a pedestal, some directly on the floor, some mounted on the wall or outside….

I decided to liberate these pieces from the canvas of the body, in which case I no longer needed to concern myself with clasps, loops, or ways to hang them from a person.  that still has the personal and intimate quality of jewelry yet without the constraints of size, fashion requirements or funcionality of jewelry. I have done away with the need for a body at all.

 

Whip
Whip
basket
Basket with pebble
turquoise-300x207
Ring from wound, waxed earmuff part, turquoise, assorted beads

These jewelry-inspired sculptures are small enough to move freely in the world. Table jewelry? Purse art? Hand held art? Whatever.

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