Why do we collect?- Small Collection- Process

I usually start by displaying materials on a table, I do a small layout to see what I have and the possibilities available, here you can see bits and pieces found on the street, on the beach.. just different walks, as time goes by I also have friends that find little pieces and give them to me just in case I can use them..

Why is there that innate eagerness of collecting?

Why do we do this? sometimes there is really not a financial value for these objects still, we feel accomplished when we find something that just fits.

But why do we have this light obsession, why do some of us do it, some of us don´t?

I have been very interested in the topic, specially because I try to understand why do I get that light sense of “joy” when I find certain materials, I am attracted to things that have a worn aspect, a sense of time that has gone past them, everything, even the smallest thing has a story.

It is all a way to understand my own nature through making, I like giving these materials a chance, a space, why not?

“We use keepsakes to stimulate memory, especially to trigger fond memories but even if memory cannot be relied upon to faithfully reproduce a record of the past, it remains vital to our understanding of the past.” Terry Shoptaugh

Photographs, toys, train tickets, the lists are endless and it varies from person to person, do you collect anything?

Back to the piece:

I made boxes to keep and display them as small treasures and kept experimenting with arranging, re-arranging, and classifying parts of a-big-world-out-there, I found a composition that made sense to me, the piece that fitted each box.

This is the first brooch I made where I did made some boxes specifically for some pieces I wanted to use but for the second one (which I will show you later on) it took a little longer, I made the arrangement and then just waited until I found the correct piece for each box.

Since this is a brooch I didn’t want the copper to go directly in touch with the clothing so I made a sterling silver frame to give it a bit of volume and stability as you see the boxes are in mixed positions, so having a frame in the back gives me a good space to make the mechanism.

At the same time, I made and soldered bezels, tubes and all the parts to hold the pieces in place.

Patina and wounded finger:

Preparing for rivets.

Some are tied with waxed cord, the knots can be burnt and is held securely in place.

Riveting

And after finishing off, removing some of the patina in certain places, oxidizing and placing the stainless steel needle in the back, this is the result.

It makes a little noise since the bell is  tied and swinging loose 🙂

After finishing, the piece left me and it’s off in the Museum of Anthropology of Palencia, for a while.

Jean Dubuffet

                     

                    

                                                                       Apartment houses ,Paris, 1946

I have always directed my attempts at the figurative representation of objects by way of summary and not very descriptive brushstrokes, diverging greatly from the real objective measurements of things, and this has led many people to talk about childish drawing…this position of seeing them (the objects, fh) without looking at them too much, without focussing more attention on them than any ordinary man would in normal everyday life..

   

         

Character, 1944

People have seen that I intend to sweep away everything we have been taught to consider – without question – as grace and beauty; but have overlooked my work to substitute a vaster beauty, touching all objects and beings, not excluding the most despised – and because of that, all the more exhilarating….

I would like people to look at my work as an enterprise for the rehabilitation of scorned values, and, in any case, make no mistake, a work of ardent celebration….

I am convinced that any table can be for each of us a landscape as inexhaustible as the whole Andes range… I am struck by the high value, for a man, of a simple permanent fact, like the miserable vista on which the window of his room opens daily, that comes, with the passing of time, to have an important role in his life. I often think that the highest destination at which a work of art can aim is to take on that function in someone’s life.

                                   

 A little secret that I have sought for a long time by way of a fortuitous encounter quite unrelated to the matter: for example six months I try to draw a camel in a way that satisfies me, and I make a thousand attempts without ever managing to do it. Then one day it is a drawing of a plump on the label of a pot of jam or the shadow thrown by an ink pot, or something or other equally unrelated to the matter that provides me with the solution. This kind of thing has happened so often that I have acquired the habit of always being on the outlook, and when I want to draw a camel I no longer limit myself, as I once did, to looking (only, fh) at camels…

                                                          

                                                                                             Il flute sur la boss (1947)

On Art Brut: Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade.

                             

                                                                                                           more here

I have been through hell and back and let me tell you, it was wonderful- Louise Bourgeois

A few days ago I had the opportunity to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibition “Structures of existence-The cells”.

I have admired her for as long as I can remember, seen documentaries, read and tried to understand all the little details of art as psychoanalysis,  the volume of her work it is impressive and seeing it in person has been truly a wonderful experience I am quite grateful for.

This is the only photo I took, honestly I do respect the rules of not photographing but I was also too busy taking it all in.

Still here are a few photos I found online of what I saw inside:

The cells represent different types of pain.

     

What touched me the most is that as you walk through the cells, it’s like walking into someone’s dreams, it’s so intimate,you can feel the fear, the anxiety the slow growth and coming to terms with things and to finally reach  acceptance and forgiveness.

It was truly beautiful.