Skip to main content

will you...?

Artists write stories about their work all the time, and the greatest joy is when that story becomes important to another person. 





This project was about creating a piece of fan-art for a client (DP) based on their love of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter stories. DP approached Jeff de Boer because he needed to commission a very special golden snitch sculpture: the body would become an opening engagement ring-box. DP had a very special proposal in mind, and the snitch was to play a key part.

Jeff and I do not usually make snitches. Jeff is a renowned metal artist and teacher, famous for creating armour for cats and mice, and collected world-wide. Jeff also has an ever-increasing body of large-scale public art projects (…with lots of news to come in 2016!). His web-site is a magical place, full of stories made real. I am an emerging metal and clay artist whom Jeff is mentoring - particularly in the skills of chasing and repoussé - and these skills were to be at the core of making the snitch. Lucky me.


Jeff and I both love stories—and who could resist being part of someone else's love story? Our challenge was to use our skills to make an heirloom for this young couple: to turn his story of a magical object, invested with his dreams, into a real object for his girl-friend. We knew that this story would be theirs to share with their family and friends, just like the name of the sculpture says, “Always”.


“Always” commission. A “golden snitch” sculpture with an opening ring-box in the body.
Designed and made by Christine Pedersen and Jeff de Boer. 2015.


My thanks to Jeff de Boer for inviting me to make this piece with him.

With thanks to our clients DP and CP - we wish you long life and happiness, always.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

narrative jewellery: tales from the toolbox book launch

For every piece of jewellery I make there is a story. It can be simple, just a note on the “why?” that led to the forms and textures, or the feeling that I want to remember. Sometimes the single idea that could become a piece, conceived way before the act of making, can become so over-whelming that I need to write a whole new reality for the jewellery to exist within. That’s how it was for “Pull”, the first piece of jewellery in a body of work that became the ReFind Collection *. It caused me to look at materials in my home, especially the things that were routinely thrown away, very differently. It was like waking up to realize I just hadn’t been paying the right kind of attention to all the “stuff” in other areas of my life; realizing that maybe jewellery could be linked to something as obscure as industrial-scale food-processing and packaging—if I allowed my mind to receive the information, differently. I am very honoured that my necklace has been included in Mark Fenn’s new

my brand: I am a nerd

His & Hers Nerd Pendants. Sterling silver. 2011. There is no point in denying it: I am a nerd. I designed these pendants for the "Branded" exhibition at the fabulous Influx Gallery in Calgary this summer. I like to bring my background in science and natural history into my art work, and in this case, I also brought some political advocacy. In an era in which some cultures still deny females equal access to education, I used the loaded motif of the apple to create a context to present the writing to the viewer. Here's the full artist statement: His and her “ nerd ” pendants confidently declare affiliation with a tribe that delights in knowledge, education and technology. Nerdism nourishes the world around us, and we are proud of that contribution. His “ nerd ” pendant is about strength in identity. Styled after a traditional branding iron, the pendant is a rugged and substantial piece of silver, designed to perpetuate this important meme beyond one life

Beaux Arts sculptural metal exhibition now open at Il Centro Art Gallery, Vancouver.

The Beaux Arts exhibition, curated by Angela Clarke at Il Centro Art Gallery, Vancouver, was developed with the Vancouver Metal Arts Association . The work of nineteen artists is included, and I am very honoured to be one of them. Huge thanks and kudos to the volunteer members of VMAA who have managed to organize and install a professional show under the current incredibly difficult conditions. To quote from Il Centro’s web-site : As the first exhibition in our Charles Marega 150 celebrations series Il Museo at Il Centro presents Beaux Arts: An Exhibition with the Vancouver Metal Arts Association. This exhibition features the sculptural metal art form both large and small. Entitled Beaux Arts in honour of the artist style of which Charles Marega was an interpreter, this juried show integrates traditional metal work with non-traditional styles and elements, true to the Beaux Arts form. Throughout the exhibition space there is a continuous juxtaposition of traditional and non- traditiona