I’m a mixedmedia and narrative jewellery artist, wonderdrifter, transmaterial storyteller, interested in electronic music and living Fluxus.

01

Low tide

Ring, 2021

Concrete, vintage heritage freshwater rice pearls, oxidised silver wire

‘Exposed 1.2.3.' - digital editing, 2021

'tide'

- the alternate rising and falling of the sea, usually twice in each lunar day at a particular place, due to the attraction of the moon and sun (...)

- a powerful surge of feeling or trend of events

'low tide'

- the state of the tide when at its lowest level

[from Oxford Lexico]

In between sea depths and outer sky, above and below, conscious and unconscious, hardship and peace, a generative ground glimmers. As water recedes, is then possible to see the treasures that tide has left glistening on now bare eroded pillars.

‘Deep dive’ - digital editing, 2021

[original pic by Ph. Yoshiyuki Iwase]

Just as traditional japanese Ama woman free divers, in the dephts of the sea while hunting for pearls at the bottom of the ocean, holding their breath up to two minutes at a time.

With each stroke, strenght and stamina increase + both mind and body adapt to outlast major changes/challenges.

‘Growing gills’ is about the ability to develope coping mechanisms to address transformation/hardship, whilst still aiming for self fulfillment right amongst odds.

Aside from the pearls, the acrylic black shape both echoes an abalone shell and evokes dephts, still leaving room for the observer’s interpretation. The pattern on the Argentium wire flat surface mimics the signs of wear on Ama’s ancient knives

03

catch! good boys don’t bite the hand

Neckpiece, 2022

Brass sheet, found object (plastic dog toy), upcycled aluminium chain, brass wire

‘need/greed' - digital collage, 2022

[gold coins pic/'Modern Times' movie frame]

“So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Upper-world people were to theirs”

'The Time Machine', H.G. Wells

“Dwayne stayed in his vacant lot for a while. He played the radio. All the Midland City stations were asleep for the night, but Dwayne picked up a country music station in West Vigini, which offered him ten different kinds of flowering shrubs and five fruit trees for six dollars, C.O.D. ‘Sounds good to me’, said Dwayne. He meant it. Almost all the messages which were sent and received in his country, even the telepathic ones, had to do with buying or selling some damn thing. They were like lullabies to Dwayne”

‘Breakfast of Champions’, K. Vonnegut

’Jack’s last jump' - digital collage, 2022

[aluminium stretch mesh/'The shining' movie frame]

05

the good mother

Brooch, 2021.

Upcycled heritage vintage mother-of-pearl pocket mirror, Argentium wire, brass chain, Black 3.0 acrylic paint

'And still' - digital collage, 2022

[Goddess Demeter relief/'Mommie dearest -' movie frame]

05

'The good mother' narrative brooch addresses the dark side of maternity

This cut-out stop motion animation is about how narrative jewellery helped me to go through metabolization of grief + how art can get you to the other side of the mourning journey and keep you sane through hardship.

At the same time, it is an introduction to my newest narrative jewellery corpus 'LOST LABOUR LOVE':

2 necklaces + 3 brooches I made upcycling bits and pieces of family objects that I had put away while clearing out my parent's house.

- video speech text -

Some time ago - it seems like yesterday at times, I had just turned 40 - my usual, regular life was hit by a massive plot twist. In a rather short lapse, I lost in a row for health issues my mother, my father, my mother-in-law and a family of friends in tragic circumstances. Not for the very first time, but for the first time really, I faced loss and knew grief. As a consequence, I also had to clear out my parents’ 1500 square feet apartment plus same size basement full of forty years of life together stuff - and a good chunk of mine, too. It was kind of emptying out the ocean with a teaspoon, as they say. As an only child and due to my parents’ busy life and multiple roles, this challenge took me months…that came to years. I honestly gave away, disposed of and even occasionally sold thousands of objects. Before I let those go, however, I started to take off and keep pieces and bits of them that I found visually or conceptually interesting, till one day I became aware that while processing things, I was also metabolizing grief. And this whole process perfectly fit my recent exploration of narrative jewellery. My quirky hoard was thus upcycled in jewelry pieces. From the Lost that I had faced, through the Labour of grief, to Love as a bright creative energy and its upshot: personal yet common stories to be shared about ‘LOST_LABOUR_LOVE’

Necklace, 2023

Heritage crystal glasses hand-shaped pieces, family documents shreds, 'Argentium' wire handmade setting, black velvet ribbon

Families are made up of people...and everyone has something they prefer or have to keep to themselves.

Clearing out a family house is a descent process through layers of materials and life, during which each object, photo or note is picked up, considered and examined. Some of them, can be easily locate in one's memory; others you will happen to have never heard of; a few, not necessarily shameful or even praisable at times, could quite surprise you. Sparkling crystals blur private truths and personal choices; afterward revelation makes way to stupor and what-ifs.

Lost labour love

the secrets we keep

Double brooch, 2023

Upcycled pencil stubs, x- rays cut-out, Argentium wire handmade setting, brass wire handmade chain

*video vocal sample: Dylan Thomas

-

'Do not go gentle into that good night'

Dylan Thomas

‘Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light’

As serious illness strikes, each of us has their own way of dealing. It sure is a highly sensitive and personal issue and every approach is thus valid.

When she was diagnosed, my mother continued on doing what she had been doing her whole life long...she kept on working, studying and writing every idea and intuition on each piece of paper she came into...no paper sheet, used envelope, crosswords magazine or even pack of cigarettes would remain pristine in her presence. And the more her days passed and thus shortened, the more she insisted on working and writing, till the last, with her favorite pencils, in order to stay vital and alive or set things before going away or leave her mark or for any other reason I will never know of. Hence, dozens of pencil stubs in pockets, drawers, bags, car glovebox as physical evidence of a relentless will.

Necklace, 2023

Family baby scale lever, family baby scale balancing screw, upcycled aluminium hand engraved plate, hand formed brass feather, upcycled silver chain, brass chain, brass wire

*Psychostasy: a weighing of lives or souls.

Greek, from psych- + stasis, act of weighing (from histanai to make to stand, weigh)

(* from Merriam-Webster dictionary)

Ceremony to which the soul/heart of the deceased was subjected as accessing the afterlife, to test their conduct in life and decree their fate after death

Among the other quirky treasures I put away during the house clearing out process, two bits of our old beloved family babyscale, on which my mother used to weight me as an infant.

On the other end of existence jouney, the weighting of the soul, when said 21 grams are about to leave our mortal coil and the stock of a life is taken, revealing the depht of what we leave behind.

As my mother loved to quote, recalling U. Foscolo

'Only who leaves no legacy of love has little joy in urns'

(tr. J.G. Nicholas)

Brooch, 2023

Family picture lenticular shifting print, transparent+dychroic acrylic sheets, silver wire handmade pin+jump rings, silver sheet handmade setting

'What the crystal reveals or makes visible is the hidden ground of time, that is, its differentiation into two flows, that of presents which pass and that of pasts which are preserved. Time simultaneously makes the present pass and preserves the past in itself'

'The Time-Image' ('L'image-temps'), Gilles Deleuze

Lenticular printing, as other forms of analog marvel, used to amuse my father who had the most poetic soul and was still a child at heart. Its simple yet effective mechanism of the shifting image adds wonder to usual pictures and feels like holding one point in time in the hand.

The kid in the portrait is my father, age 4, in one of the countless family shots I found while clearing out. No album, no folder, just thousands of loose pictures scattered in drawers and boxes, shuffled like receding memories.

As long as it persists in someone's memory, something lives in an eternal present - but what happens to the object of our memories when they begin to fade?

Brooch, 2023

ECG print cut-out, transparent acrylic sheet, anatomical heart print cut-out, brass sheet handmade setting+pin

*sound samples_Soundtrap [layering: ecg heartbeat sound + pink noise + music track]

'Pink noise:

a mixture of sounds or electrical signals that has a lot of low-frequency sounds, producing a deep sound'

(Cambridge Dictionary)

Similar to white noise, pink noise 1/f frequency is lower and can be found in natural systems such as human heartbeat and stellar luminosity energy.

My father was a big man, with big yet delicate hands. Long gone the slender days of youth, he was not athletic nor trained. Still, when he had a sudden cardiac dissection on a june night, his body-soul-heart kept on singing their song for 29 days, clinging to life, for which he had such deep respect, in spite of everything.

That song and that spark are in the artistic process/transformation/ regeneration that give rise to new light.

Les Briques Radieuses

Rings, 2021

Concrete, acrylic, aluminium

Small chunks of a mesmerising concrete vision

concrete : material : neutral = acrylic : light : vibrant

Inspired by La Cité Radieuse (Le Corbousier)

exhibitions

francesca_cecamore

francesca.cecamore

francescacecamore

francesca.cecamore@gmail.com

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