Focus and definitions: part 2

As I have been working on my report I have added to my definitions and to what I am doing as it has become clearer to me.

The last headings I spoke about were:

1. Art jewellery



2. Narrative Jewellery



3. Fragility



4. transience

I now add Metaphor and explain the difference between meatphor and symbolism.

In this exploration I am dealing with my personal ideas and views on the life as I see it which is based on my personal experiences and values which are influenced by my surroundings, my close community and society. These all make up the world around me.

In expressing the above in the form of jewellery I am making my ideas, thoughts and feelings more tangible by using metaphors which help make these concepts and ideas easier to understand. In short I am dealing with:

1. Subject matter: hydrangea flowers and toy soldiers become metaphors for fragility and transience in my work. I use the Hydrangea flower as a metaphor for life which includes the cycles and stages of this flowers life cycle linking it to the human life cycle aswell as focuing on the fragility and impermanence of this flower which holds within it transient value. I have subverted the little ary men and have taken away their weapons and the objects in thier hands that are not symbolic of life but rather destruction and i have given them "friendlier" objects and have "dis-armed" them.



2. Techniques and Materials- Deliberate choices of materials and techniques will add to my concepts of fragility and transience

little soldiers

I am just loving the fun aspect of playing with the little soldiers that I have cast. I am changing their "outlook" on life and getting them to loosen up a little ;)

I have been making and finding objects to fit in their hands to change their original look of being ready for a fight.

Basically I have dis-armed them (not taken their arms off but taken away their weapons).

I have many ideas but have started off with these 2 below:

1. gave him a flower

I gave him a real hydrangea that was cast in metal, the flower looks stiff in metal but there is something about it that still appeals to me. I am going to do somemore with flowers but am going to add colour to them.

The next man needed some protection from the elements outside so i gave him an umbrella:

Metaphor and Symbolism

The difference between a metaphor and symbolism

Metaphor: A comparison between two seemingly different things. It is an implied personal language of expression and is used as a "device of poetic imagination."It is experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (Lakoff and Johnson 2003:3,5)

In the book Metaphors we live by Lakoff and Johnson, they talk about metaphors being part of our everyday lives. They say that the concepts that cannot be physically seen can be made more tangible or more understandible in the form of metaphors.

Metaphors can also be described as " the application of a name or descriptive term or phrase to an object or actionto which it is imaginatively but not literally applicable" (tulloch 1993:958 "the readers digest oxford complete word finder")

Metaphorical expression differs from a symbolic interpretation because a metaphor is more a personal interpretation of an idea and a symbolic interpretation of a concept is more conventional or unoriginal and has more of a fixed meaning which the general public should be able to interpret.

Symbolism is a fixed idea or a meaningful association with something else. symbolism is an indirect suggestion to express ones ideas. "A symbol not only represents something else but also hints at a missing "something" an invisible part that is needed to achieve complete wholeness." (O'connell and Airey 2007:6 " Signs and Symbols: what they mean and how we use them")

I have found a wonderful jeweller whose works with symbolism of organic jewellery. Her name is Sharon Church and you can look at her work on http://www.sharonshurch.com/. Her works speak of the cycles of life and the process of change that comes with these cycles. I feel that her work speaks of transience in the cycles of life she uses in her jewellery and her organic forms have connotations of fragility held within them.


So I have been very busy working with the hydrangea flower when it is in full bloom, but now as the season for hydrangeas has past, I am taking a look at the hydrangea flowers that have dried out. I want my work to be symbolic of time passing/ different seasons/ changes in a cycle of life/ cycle of life/fragility of the impermanence of time and I am exploring ways to do this using the hydrangea as a metaphor for this. (it sounds long winded but eventually I will be able to phrase it properly)


here is the progress on the hydrangea piece I started for the end of year:

I still need to decide what finish I will do to the flowers. I do like the white look of the flowers and i am thinking of adding colour to a few of them. There are a few options:

• paint


• gold plating


• plastic


• enamel