fine ounce goldsmith collective

Two new members to the fine ounce team by Frieda

 

I want to introduce Meagan and Gela as two new facets to fine ounce. 

Their works show great detail although both of them approach their craft in completely unique ways. You can look forward to the next fine ounce exhibition in September.   

Meagan – quirky things carved from wax

I started out with pencils and paint brushes and pursued painting and drawing relentlessly for most of my life, biting the bristle (as I am not the academic sort) to get my Master of Fine Art Degree at Rhodes University in the year of our Lord 1990… My education continued to a far greater degree when setting out from my rural protestant hometown in the Eastern Cape across the seas to what seemed a completely different and fascinating world (which happened to be on the same planet), namely Europe. After submersing myself in every possible cultural and sensual experience I could, I returned home quite a different person. 

 

I realized at this point that I needed to take on the challenge of career and money as strange as the whole system appeared, and so began my long relationship with jewellery manufacture. After a grueling but productive apprenticeship with David Bolding in Cape Town I chose to pursue a more creative angle to jewellery making and set up my small studio at my home in Muizenberg. 

 Trying to marry business and creativity has been a bit like trying to mix water and oil - a Sisyphean task, and to my dismay for others it seems as easy as riding a bicycle.

The other less arduous challenge I face is that I see the potential for subject matter and creativity everywhere, even amidst the mass-produced, plastic paraphernalia of western culture. This synthetic debris requires only a little tweaking and restructuring, and wonders occur, a bit like plastic surgery on the cheap. Then there is the stupendous beauty of the natural landscape and all it magnificent plants and creatures, real and mythological. Add to this art history and imagination. It is very difficult staying focused on one particular thing when there is so much to explore and experience. Thank goodness for the small dose of Calvinist conditioning I have been subjected too, making me appreciate that everything has it’s place even the seemingly unpleasant or absurd.

 

The context where I have managed to remain tenacious is in the arena of wax carving. Objects carved are then cast into metal by means of a “lost wax” process. The fascination with detail has held my attention from the very beginning of my rendezvous with jewellery making and for the most part I do what I do for the love of wax.

Angela- and the meticulous craft

I, Angela (Gela) Tölken, am of German descent and was born in 1981, in Windhoek, Namibia.

In 2000 I moved to Stellenbosch, South Africa, to study Creative Jewellery Design and Metal Techniques at the University of Stellenbosch, graduating with my Masters in Arts in March 2006.

I currently live and work in Stellenbosch as a free-lance art jeweller and a part-time staff member of the Division for Creative Jewellery Design and Metal Techniques of the Visual Arts Department, University of Stellenbosch. Throughout my studies I was particularly interested in the creative process as a means of self-expression – a fascination which continues to determine the focus of my creative practice at present. I tend to create my jewellery with all my heart and soul, the pieces inevitably telling stories about me in the end. 

My work reveals my fascination with texture, pattern, rhythm, movement, contrasts, systems and nature. My personal style inevitably includes the use of strong, clear and simple lines, fine detail, colour, contrast and repetition. Labour-intensive processes usually constitute the bulk of my visual vocabulary and the structure of my creative practice is meticulous, deliberate (if not choreographed) and incremental to the point of "coralline accretion"(Nic Dawes in Edmunds, P. Aggregate. Paul Edmunds & Joao Ferreira Gallery. 2008.)

Being involved in the entire process of designing, conceptualizing, testing and then making a piece is a highly fulfilling, albeit at times distressing, experience. I design and produce my pieces myself and only create a piece once. All works are manufactured entirely by hand, usually over a period of several days or even weeks. My pieces, if not the work processes themselves, definitively reveal my obsessiveness as well as my firm belief in immaculate craftsmanship. 

I find enormous joy in closely observing fine details - marvelling at textures, compositions and patterns. Usually I feel compelled to touch them, trying to take them in with all of my senses. These instances of noting the inherent beauty in something always constitute moments of wonder and surprise, moments I consider to be ‘soul food’.

For me there is nothing more nurturing than being in nature, especially in remote places. Wide, apparently empty and silent expanses with nobody there (except perhaps for a few very close and special people) quite literally provide my soul with the space it needs to fully be, and to take flight.

Hiking the un-trodden slopes of the Cederberg or the Brandberg, experiencing the magic of Namibia’s arid south, its deserts and the Damaraland, taking in light changes of magnificent sunsets and sleeping under stars are priceless for me.