Metalsmithing

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/180170

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Now showing 1 - 16 of 16

Open Access
Avery Rush: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Rush, Avery, artist
The artist's statement: In my artistic practice, I explore the delicate balance between beauty and grotesqueness. My fascination with the unusual, mysterious, and spooky has been a constant throughout my life. By embracing objects, materials, and imagery that are often associated with negative connotations, I have been able to evoke a sense of empowerment through body adornment. My artwork not only allows me to express myself creatively but also enables me to gain a deeper understanding of my relationship with the world around me. By confronting and accepting the parts of myself that I have previously deemed unworthy or shameful, I am able to heal the inner wounds that have been inflicted upon me. My creations serve as a representation of acceptance and self-love. Through my art, I have learned the importance of sitting with uncomfortable emotions and experiences, allowing myself to fully feel and understand them. This practice has taught me to be comfortable with all aspects of myself, both positive and negative. As I continue to produce new works, I am empowered to be my most authentic self and to share my unique perspective with the world.
Open Access
Charis Christopher: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Christopher, Charis, artist
The artist's statement: Charis Christopher. Ephemeral Undulations at Tea Time. e·phem·er·al, /əˈfem(ə)rəl/, lasting for a very short time, synonyms: temporary, momentary, brief, fleeting, impermanent. un·du·late, /ˈənjəˌlāt/, move with a smooth wavelike motion, to rise and fall, surge, swell, heave, ripple, billow, flow, roll, etc., synonyms: curve, wind (snake-like), wobble, oscillate, fluctuate. Conscious vitality is an undulating dance of life and death. Balanced on a knife's edge, the two sided coin of our lives has every opportunity to wobble and weave between what is empirical and what is enigmatic. Harnessing my passion for metals I introspectively explore understanding the life I am given, my choices and actions and their resulting affects, and the inevitability of my death. A handmade mahogany-stained tea trolley sporting steel-rimmed wheels symbolizes gumption, determination, and understated style. These are personality traits of mine that support my ideals which are manifested in the metal works I create. I work in copper and silver with an emphasis on fabrication, riveting, raising, chasing and repoussé, chain making, and wearable art. Throughout history, copper has been thought to bring warmth and balance to its surrounding environment and silver is associated with the moon and stars, memory, purity and spirituality. When coupling the motherly strength, sturdiness, and assuredness of the warm, earth-centric copper with the bright, ethereal, silver it may bring balance and understanding of the two sides of existence: the experiential being and the mysterious otherness. Curling tendrils of steam symbolize an individual's choices and the outside influences that sculpt the path of one's life. Steam, smoke and rising vapors are visual reminders of the inevitability of death through the mere passage of time; sit watching a hot cup of tea long enough and the steam rising off it will disappear only remembered by the condensation left on the cup's walls. Spiraling whiffs of smoke and steam and death are natural. I believe endings should be acknowledged while still alive so that life may be enjoyed to the fullest. I plan to travel through this ephemeral life knowing this is all the time I am given to dance the most beautiful undulations I may choose for myself.
Open Access
Conner Dobson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Dobson, Conner, artist
The artist's statement: Over the last four years, I have been through three separate abusive relationships, each one leaving me with worsened depression, anxiety, and body image. Combined with an inability to confront my past derived from toxic masculinity, this negativity dominates my mental state. Since finally admitting all that I've been through, my work has been driven to fight the emotional and psychological weight that I have carried for too long. By shaping vessels, I find that I am able to share this weight. In the same way my body carries the burden of my story, each vessel I create bears a unique story fragment, either a single event or an arduous journey within my life. At once, the story fragment is memorialized and stored away, the associated feelings and their baggage now shared between the vessel and my body. Rather than a burden, each story is instead a lesson, and it's vessel a way to open up. Yet I am not ready for the world to hear my story, at least not all of it. In achieving a much needed balance, I looked to a font that I had designed early in my art career. Though initially a child of boredom, this font ended up being the perfect way to open up about my struggles. The font reads as English (it is not a completely new language), but it is nonetheless something only I can decipher. By using the font, I am able to overtly place deeply painful stories into each piece without the viewer judging me for my past. In a sense, the font and the work enable me to open up and share my stories with the world, but not necessarily the people in it.
Open Access
Daniel Westhoff: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Westhoff, Daniel, artist
The artist's statement: My artwork poses metaphysical questions that analyze what constitutes the human mind, with the intention of better understanding our ends and motives as a society and a species. My process is an introspective one, enhanced by the slow and contemplative nature of metalwork. In creating an object, I learn more about myself, using each piece as a visual model for the issue I think upon. Through the content of my work, I invite viewers to engage in a similar mental process. My recent work is an exploration of the mind, and its inner workings. Each aspect, or faculty, provides a unique function in overall sentience. Our intuition supplies us with a foundation through which we can understand the world. Our perception is what manifests our experiences, and each vantage renders no experience the same as another. Through our reason, we can solve problems and determine the best course of action. Through our will, we enact our agenda and forge our destinies. My aim is to understand how each of these faculties operate and relate to one another, and turn the inquiry into physical objects. I portray these mental faculties as keys because of the way in which each of them, when used properly, grants access to new places and new states of mind. The process involved in making these pieces is as important as the final product. The choice of metal, and the techniques and elements used in each key, relate to the specific faculty represented. In this way, each key is imbued both materially and conceptually with the essence of my inquiry.
Open Access
Emily Andersen Arends: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Andersen Arends, Emily, artist
The artist's statement: Every women's body tells a unique story: the stages of her life, the tasks her body has undertaken, and the wonders of its many shapes and forms. Wrinkles tell the story of the past. There is a beauty in how the events of our lives are displayed on the canvas of our skin. Through my work, women are open to be proud of the smooth skin of their youth as well as the wrinkled skin of their future. A woman's body changes after the vessel of her womb has been filled and emptied. Also, the stages of aging manipulate the shapes of her form. In my work, vessels that are worn or stand-alone enforce the idea and metaphor of containment. These vessels are meant to give an internal and external aspect of invited interaction. There is a desire and a privilege of knowing and experiencing what is inside. From the vessel of the womb, to the wrinkles and shapes of the female body, I have explored and celebrated what it is to be a woman through my eyes.
Open Access
Emily Yodis: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Yodis, Emily, artist
The artist's statement: Every 7 years the body turns over every cell essentially creating a whole new body, a new person who looks, feels and acts differently. I am a completely different woman than I was at even 16 years old. In my life I have had a tumultuous relationship with my body and the concept of sex; specifically, intimacy and pleasure. I view this collection of work as a reclamation of bodily autonomy and understanding, helping me find love for a new body that has never seen such harsh criticism. Safety, comfort, ownership, reclamation, understanding, overcoming are all processes that I work through in life, but also within my metalwork. Mental power, sexual power, and physical strength/integrity are concepts I embed in the physical creations I produce. My jewelry is directly connected to the location of the body on which the piece is worn. It is in conversation with my ceramic work, which also references the body, but in an abject style. These vessels give the viewer an uneasy, uncomfortable, and even disgusted reaction. Social constructs about how some parts of the body are seen as beautiful while others (and sometimes even the same parts) are seen as disgusting fascinate me. I explore these ideas in my piece "The Beauty of Something Unbeautiful", in which I contrast couture-style jewelry with the less glamorous location of the foot. Femininity, sex from the female perspective, and stigma about attention and the act of "showing off" also interest me. My piece "Spineless" engages these themes through taking the central structure of the human body and displaying it in a more vulnerable position on the naked human back. The consistent theme within most of my metalwork is the reclamation of my own body. Growing up as a woman there was tons of pressure to fit the ideal body type, even though the ideal body type has changed so much just in the 23 years I have been alive. Making amends with my body has empowered me to finally accept not necessarily what I look like, but the idea that my body is a vessel that contains who I really am. This reconciliation has brought me peace and happiness, and helps ground my artmaking process. Finally coming to terms and accepting my physical form has been one of the most prominent struggles in my womanhood. Many women have gone through similar experiences as I. For me, the most important part of healing is channeling my experiences into the physical manifestation of objects that are both vulnerable and strong.
Open Access
Hannah Chatham: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Chatham, Hannah, artist
The artist's statement: I cast and manipulate parts of my body to create wearable conversation pieces. Curious forms evolve from transformative processes, such as combined wax-casting and digital modeling. Focus on orifices symbolize the importance of listening to your guts, or inner voice. These devices playfully explore the interior and exterior, indulging sensuality and humor.
Open Access
Jaden Scott: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Scott, Jaden, artist
The artist's statement: Memories are invaluable to me. They are passed from person to person, generation to generation, friend to friend, and will outlive what they remember. Sharing these memories through storytelling, artifacts, hidden meanings, and manifested abstract ideas are the goals of my work. Being able to show a deeply personal experience from the inside and share it outwardly is at the root of my expression of memories. I create to hold onto family, friends, past and future versions of myself, and my own challenges I faced in small physical fragments. My work is a collection of personal souvenirs. My personal souvenirs are all rooted in narratives: being diagnosed with an incurable disease, past and future versions of myself, my background in dance, my exploration of gender, and, most prominently: my heritage. My grandparents were farmers and lived on a multi-acre farm, their work ethic and overall way of life heavily inspire my work and the narratives I tell. It is important for me to take these experiences and transform them into work, through which I take the time to reflect on them and myself during the process. In my metals practices, I focus on non-jewlery ways to adorn the body that add meaning to the work itself. The location at which something is placed on the body is very important to me as a way of describing the feeling inside and showing what that manifests from that outside. Examples of this include medical images of different areas of my abdomen and recreating them to be worn in their same locations on the outside or trying to describe the abstract feeling of love and memory and placing it over the heart. I focus on the body itself and how the forms and feelings inside the body can be depicted exteriorly. By creating work that dives into deeply personal stories, I am able to dissect the impacts certain events had on me and process them through my work. Taking multiple hours to go through the process of creating a piece allows me time to sit with the ideas and events, and come out the other side a little bit wiser. There is a lot of nuance in the choices I make during my process and I can spend hours detailing the entire story and reasoning in each piece I make. It is my goal to share my narratives, my love for the craft, and myself through my works.
Open Access
Jamie Hettinger: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Hettinger, Jamie, artist
The artist's statement: My recent artwork reflects the stresses I feel personally about my own home and my resistance to live peacefully within it. As a result of this, I began thinking about what makes an ideal woman and where I belong in this ideal. External dictates of what is beautiful, what is appropriate, and what is needed to be successful or loved, fuels my passion for this work. My pieces expose the oppressive nature of domestic life and my response to these pressures through the use of materials from the domestic sphere that are often seen as weak and easily manipulated. Within this work, I explore the strength in fragility and transparency that is natural to these materials: plastic wrap, paraffin, thread, pins. Each material reacts differently to the stress of heat and pressure: the molten metal must be carefully watched, wax quickly melts and runs away, the plastic wrap clings and forms into itself. These reactions seem a sign of weakness, until the final forms emerge as unexpected realities standing strong as newly empowered objects. This new power, contrasted with the fragility of the materials, creates a push/pull dynamic. The viewer may be drawn in, but the way in which these pieces are made create between the viewer and the audience. The space in which you can move into is limited, yet still communicative of the perceived boundaries that are set upon feminine culture and the intentions of possession. Through reshaping and recontextualizing these materials, new emotions are wrought. Texture, color, and surface become important in expressing multiple moments in each object's making and origin. When a material with the purpose of preservation is manipulated, a piece of interest is formed. Similarly, when a woman's idea of self is altered, her interests can transform. Only you can dictate what is beautiful to you, what is appropriate for you, what is success and whether you are loved.
Open Access
Jennifer Lammey: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Lammey, Jennifer, artist
The artist's statement: Human beings often assign meaning to objects that give the wearer strength or power. For example, an amulet may have been used to ward off the evil eye. Medieval European witch bottles were buried in the ground to trap evil spirits. The objects in this show take the form of my own personal amulets, talismans and vessels. They are a record of obstacles I have overcome, and reminders that in overcoming these challenges, I am stronger as an artist. Unexpectedly, they also helped me discover that my true passion is teaching art to children. Instead of simply telling my students to work through challenges, I now have physical objects to show them what perseverance can look like. For example, I had spent numerous hours on a teapot, but made a miscalculation in the etching process. Instead of abandoning the project I instead repurposed it into a new form, which I call, Teapot, Interrupted. Whenever one of my art students is struggling with an art project I always tell them my teapot story because I believe it is important for students to realize that their teachers make mistakes as well, and are not infallible beings. My goal in sharing my story with my students is to inspire them to take on challenges in their own lives, and to help them learn the value of not giving up even--or especially--when things are at their most difficult.
Open Access
Kelsey Gruber: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Gruber, Kelsey, artist
The artist's statement: I am currently exploring the relationship between found and discarded materials in relationship to preciousness and adornment in my metals work. The materials and symbols in my work imply death in some way, whether it be a literally dead specimen or a metaphorically dead object: one that is obsolete, has been given up by its previous owner, or is a made representation of something dead. I take these objects and I conserve their dead attributes in a way that protects, honors, and holds as sacred. I work specifically with nests and integrating them into the language of craft and adornment. Wasps, birds, and other creatures create their nests out of discarded and dead materials to then create life in, only for the nests to be left behind and discarded once again. This cyclical nature of material is in direct relation to the cyclical nature of life and death; I view these cycles as a portal for new transmutations. These cycles are also a reminder of the preciousness of life and death - to hold death as sacred is to transform our narratives of death into something continuous rather than final. There have been a lot of deaths close to my heart in the recent years, and with little room to grieve amidst the business of getting a degree, I needed to come up with a way that I could connect with death in a factual, but meaningful sense. Death does not only exist in the cessation of life: it exists in creation and all throughout life in terms of rebirth. Death is not an end, it is in fact a cycle that is as close to us as our waking lives. Between these moments of constant death and life is where I find the fibers of creation; the poetry of existence; the nests with their honey and eggs. Death will always feed life, and life will always feed death.
Open Access
Kenzie Nelson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Nelson, Kenzie, artist
The artist's statement: My work focuses on crafting objects that are difficult to interact with, to express my fears related to intimacy and vulnerability as a woman. Interactions that have robbed me of feelings of safety and personal space have left me with the desire to defend and protect my body. Creating something untouchable or sharp speaks to this protective stance, visually and physically deterring the viewer from overstepping boundaries. Power associations applied to objects is also something that interests me, particularly within objects that are gendered. These objects can be in place to hold power over external things/people or give power to the wearer. Objects like belt buckles are essentially trophies on display at the waist aim to exude male dominance in an effort intimidate others and demonstrate strength. Incorporating traditionally feminine image and symbol into masculine objects is something I explore in my work as a source of self-empowerment and to provoke conversation about gender dynamics. I am fascinated by the way our society deems certain places, objects, or people worthy of protecting and neglects others. Religious sites reveal a variety of ways that these messages can be communicated. It can be more straightforward in the form of spiked decorative fences around a cemetery or more coded with symbols such as quatrefoils integrated into the decoration of churches. Relating these themes of protecting structures and the physical body continues to be a source of inspiration as I am creating these objects.
Open Access
Mandy Kaufman: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Kaufman, Mandy, artist
The artist's statement: My work is focused on the ways that one can explore identity and the way that one's identity is treated differently by others. As someone who has been through state sanctioned institutional abuse for my identity, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the ways we treat others because of who they are and the ways that we internalize and copy the abuse we suffer in a desperate attempt to fit in. I express this through the language of musical instruments as they are excellent allegories for the way that we express ourselves and interact with the world around us. I particularly focus on old folk instruments that aren’t commonly played to draw a connection to the ways that atypical identities are mistreated by a society that refuses to try to understand and appreciate those differences for what they are. Just as our society distrusts those different than us, many people don’t listen to music made by instruments they are not familiar with. As I have grown to accept my own identity and live with it proudly, I have had to learn to apologize for not letting myself and others sing our own songs and be proud of the peculiar and unique people we are. Almost six years after I left conversion therapy, I now understand the person I was and the ways I abused myself and others by internalizing the thoughts and rationales of my abusers. As I use art to help understand myself and my relationship to society, I also hope my work in some way can help teach others that the unknown and the strange isn't something to be suppressed and punished but accepted and celebrated.
Open Access
Nettie Thompson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Thompson, Nettie, artist
The artist's statement: I pay attention to things. It's part scientific examination, tempered by childlike fascination. My work begins with immersive research. Whether this entails a morning hike in the woods armed with sketchbook and pencil, an afternoon spent deliberating over botanical illustrations and geology textbooks in the library, or an evening reviewing architectural magazines, a period of intense study usually heralds the beginning of any gestating project. Jewelry is both functional and decorative, a personal decision and yet on public display, joining seemingly disparate themes into a cohesive whole. This play of one concept against another exercises a pivotal role in my work. Small scale jewelry interests me specifically because of the opportunities it presents to transform largescale design elements into wearable artifacts. My work attempts to see forms of biological machinery in a new light, capturing the wonder, awe, and scientific inquiry inherent in these structures, and combining that with an aesthetic appreciation of form. I distill these forms of complicated biology into flat, curvilinear planes that intersect in deceptively simple ways, playing with the mechanics of function and motion. From research to realization, my process leads to an exploration of the dichotomous horizons of metalsmithing and jewelry, and helps me to share my own version of seeing things.
Open Access
Sarah McFadden: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) McFadden, Sarah, artist
The artist's statement: Working as a Metalsmith, I explore the complex ideas of memory, attachment, and entropy by creating physical objects. In my own life, I have struggled with letting go of people, places, memories, and beliefs. This is partially because there is no indisputable evidence that the events, relationships, and feelings I have experienced have actually transpired. Only traces of these things remain, and I only know that they are from these past things. In Nothing to Hold, I have created a series of copper boxes. Boxes formally contain and hold. With material, size, and shape in mind, these boxes were created to be held themselves. Copper is an approachable material, soft and warm, encouraging touch. Small enough to fit in one's hand, curvature and texture bring awareness to the surface of the pieces. The traditional sense of a box is challenged in these pieces by the manipulation of common box forms. Starting with volumetric forms, each one is manipulated through different processes: raising, hammering, and electroforming. Marks from these processes are left on the surface of the objects, referencing their own memories and pasts. These manipulating processes lead to objects that are both familiar, yet unknown, inviting the viewer to visually digest their surfaces and forms, learning their histories. In addition to collecting intangible things like memories and relationships, we have an inert tendency to collect physical objects. We keep them piled high in closets or tucked away in boxes in basements. Only rarely taking them out of their resting places to use them or to reminisce about how they came into our lives; mementos for where we've been. This compulsive collection of object is an attempt to control constant deterioration of stability in our lives. These boxes act as both place holders and vessels of all these things that I cannot firmly hold. Dug in, Dug out, discusses sense of place and its ties to attachment. For this piece, I visited places from my past that are significant to me; three childhood homes, Roosevelt National Forest, Red Feather Lakes, and my grandad's home on the Chesapeake Bay. Once there, I used my fingers to dig out a hole in the ground at these sights. Molten metal was then cast into these holes. The cooled material is a physical imprint of the earth it was poured into. Each casting serves as a record or physical image of these very specific sites that I can no longer inhabit and have watched change over time.
Open Access
Syd Hanna: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Hanna, Syd, artist
The artist's statement: My relationship with my body has never been good. Growing up, I knew I was different from my peers. I didn't know what to call it or how to express it so for most of my life I pushed those negative feelings down and out of my mind. Through my art practice, I began creating things that led me towards the changes I desperately needed to make. My current work continuously points me in the way of the body; more specifically, the one I have resented for so long. Through my work, I explore these feelings of fear and confusion surrounding my gender identity. I reveal normally hidden spaces on my body to commemorate my struggle to find myself. I elevate these private spaces as a celebration of my journey, transforming the darkness that has held on to me for so long into something of immense value, both precious and beautiful. The relationship between the human body and art has been explored for centuries, and my work focuses on pushing that exploration to highlight my transgender experience. I channel the pain and uncertainty into something beautiful that accentuates my body in a unique way. The delicate textures of my hands and the curves and lines that cradle them, remind me to hold myself closely and gently in times of uncertainty and stress.

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