The Life of Inanimate Objects

I virtual-stumbled upon this artist who makes beautiful jewellery using old teacups which might otherwise be cast aside. They really seem to have a life of their own and a story behind them. They were possibly somebody's favourite or worst, or kept in a cluttered cupboard only to be used for special occasions and special people, but as subtle or obvious someone's reaction to them, i find it hard to believe people could have been indifferent to them.

http://www.cleverbastards.co.nz/html/blob.php?document=23382&filetypecode=2&fileId=7264

Etched and enamelled

 The repetition of the plant image is like that of vetkats repetition of it, and also much like the scattering of plants in the desert.

I used the layering of enamel on copper on silver as a suggestion of the Kalahari Desert. The sand goes from white to coppery orange and is then splashed with some grey and green short grass. It is a world apart from our lush rain-forest-like vegetation in Kwa-Zulu Natal, And it is that unique "look" that allows me such vivid memories of the place and my times spent there. The way things look is ever more apparently the key to it's ability to be remembered.

Similarly, I used red/brown stained etched ostrich eggshell with fine silver wire as if to replicate a birds nest or the dry grass in which an ostrich eggshell might be seen.  The back of the pendant is blackened and glass fibre brushed sterling silver with some images of birds from Vetkat's drawings.
The pieces are not so much trying to copy the images and objects from my memory, so much as commemorating them, or getting the "feeling" of them, along with paying tribute to Vetkat who loved, lived, and in his drawings captured those places and things so well.