Zoë Veness employs an open cloisonné technique to make pendants that capture fleeting skies on Dharawl Country.

When journeying to Warrane/Sydney I pass through a stretch of road on the outskirts of Nowra on Dharawl Country where the landscape transitions from residential housing and industrial buildings to open pastures. The road arcs and gradually descends to trace the Illawarra Escarpment, with Coolangatta Mountain appearing to the right in the distance. It is a picturesque moment, especially in the early hours of the day, with the expanse of green fields illuminated by a glowing horizon, an otherworldly scene as I drive northward towards the sun, watching the colours change in the sky.

Compelled to photograph this moment during successive trips over the last couple of years, I have now accumulated numerous photos of the sky’s unfolding drama rendered in shades of pink, orange, purple and grey. Photography is a noticing strategy in my jewellery practice that I have intuitively adopted to think through ideas. Often, I am unaware of where the photos will lead or how they can be translated into jewellery objects until I start to look closely at the images as a series to assess relations between visual elements, including subtle distinctions between colour, pattern and forms; potential meaning; and making methods.

Contemplating the sky reinforces the notion of time as enduring, stretching beyond the scope of human experience…

This reflective process of noticing a place through photography draws my attention to encounters with other places, and in this case, with other skies. I find myself taking photographs of skies over Yuin Country, where I live, and adding these to my ensemble of vistas. Contemplating the sky reinforces the notion of time as enduring, stretching beyond the scope of human experience; a concept captured poignantly by W.S. Merwin in his poem Rain Light (2008) when he refers to “stars watching all day from long ago”.

Earlier this year, I started to experiment with enamel as a method to translate my sky photographs. After numerous tests with forms and colours, I decided to create a series of pendants. Vitreous enamel is a process of kiln-firing layers of powdered glass onto metal. The process has ancient origins, with early examples of enamelled jewellery illustrating cloisonné techniques in which enamel is applied within cells formed by thin walls of metal. My approach is more liberal in comparison to traditional enamel methods of cloisonné. Instead, I paint or sift glass powders on flat metal surfaces, which is a contemporary approach shared by many artists today. Once a layer of powdered glass is applied to the surface, it is fired for a couple of minutes, with every second in the kiln impacting the visual outcome. The ultimate result is an even, glossy effect. After each firing, the surface is ground smooth using an alundum stone, which can reveal the layers underneath, a part of the process I enjoy for its unpredictable results.

Once I refined my enamelling approach, I then searched for inspiration for the shapes of each pendant by consulting an old edition of The Ashley Book of Knots, which I inherited many years ago, written by Clifford W. Ashley and first published in 1947. This comprehensive tome examines over 3000 knots with hand-drawn diagrams of knots and illustrations of uses and contexts. It is an astounding book for its high level of detail, even including a long list of “occupational knots” for vocations such as baking, basketmaking, and bell ringing. I selected several single-strand knots for their closed loops, such as quatrefoils and braided rings, which I considered to be ideal for conveying my journeys between home and work as a process of return. Using Illustrator software to trace the designs, I adapted nine knot formations as templates for the pendant shapes, which were cut out from thin sheets of copper.

In this series, I combined painting and sifting methods with two types of powdered enamel: an opaque form with names of colours such as harvest blue and clover pink, and a finer porcelain variety known for industrial applications. When mixed with water, both types can be painted onto metal with slightly differing outcomes in colour and surface quality.

I worked incrementally to create the series by reflecting on colour choices and atmospheric shifts in response to the making of each piece, gradually building a sequence of interrelated sky scenes from white clouds to orange horizons.

Totalling 27 pendants, “Sky Series” traces the moods of the heavens through intimate forms. The work has been created for the exhibition Matters of Time: Contemporary Metal Practices at UNSW Galleries, curated by Catherine Woolley. With the appearance of windows, they entice you to look closely at the materiality of enamel and the symbiotic tensions between glass and metal, and to reflect on the ephemerality of light and colour in the scene beyond.

Tags

G40 | jewellery | knot | New South Wales | Zoe Veness