Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
Issue link: http://ornamentmagazine.epubxp.com/i/104373
BRIGANDINE FOR ISHTAR NECKPIECE of riveted street metal, copper, silver, nickel, steel, glass; fabricated; dimensions in front are 15.2 centimeters long, 35.6 centimeters wide and 3.8 centimeters deep; back is 38.1 centimeters long, 40.6 centimeters wide and 10.2 centimeters deep, 2005. Model: Monica Giudici. Photographs: Rex Rystedt. Worden was inspired by hearing that soldiers had to improvise their own armor for their HumVees during the Iraq war. She collected most of the attached found objects from the street. Opposite page: NANCY WORDEN is shown teaching children at the Columbia City Farmer's Market in Seattle, Washington, Summer 2011. Curators and others have described your work as forceful, demanding and gripping. You have often dealt with psychological and highly emotional themes in your work, such as your show several years ago called Fear Factor, which among other subjects made direct reference to young women and men going off to war in Iraq. You must have very intense emotions while making such pieces. If so, does that make the work especially difficult for you? Intense emotion isn't something I am afraid of and passion can actually aid the sustained effort of the design process. The hard part is letting go of the work, and occasionally I set aside something to keep for myself. Brigandine For Ishtar, the big armor-like neckpiece I made about mothers of my generation sending their daughters off to war, is one of those. My husband says he can't part with it; I made the mistake of bringing it home and setting it out where it has become a part of our daily lives. Your work is generally big and often has a ceremonial look to it. What is the relationship between jewelry and sculpture, and do you think about wearability when making your biggest, boldest pieces? Absolutely everything I make is wearable. I only design in the context of the human body. The big pieces are intended as ceremonial, which is one of the traditional functions of jewelry. Queen Elizabeth has a crown she only wears for the opening of Parliament, but she also has some nice brooches she wears for every day. My studio produces jewelry for everyday that is simple and lightweight as well as the larger pieces. I designed the display stands for my larger work at the request of my collectors. The big stuff needs a place to live when it's not being worn; it won't fit in a drawer. For many years I did exhibition design and installation working with ethnographic artifacts, and I designed and made stands for them. My jewelry has more in common with those artifacts than sculpture, which is why I sometimes refer to my work as modern artifacts. The purpose and art history of jewelry is completely different from the purpose and art history of sculpture. Other than some design influence, they really have very little in common. How did you become interested in metalsmithing and jewelry? I was extremely lucky to go to a high school with a good art program that included jewelry. From there I went on to college and graduate school during the years when the American studio craft movement was going strong. You have some very strongly held views on how to be a working artist. What do you tell young people contemplating a life as an artist? Talent isn't something you are born with. Being an artist or a craftsperson is very hard work with long hours and no guarantee of making a living. I know very few young people with the kind of work ethic my generation has. You have to 17 ORNAMENT 36.2.2012 contemporary culture and traditional and historical jewelry design from around the world. Tell us a bit more about why these subjects interest you. What I try to do in my work is describe an incident in my life experience and distill it down into something many people can relate to. In this way I often touch on topics that might be too sensitive to address with words. The goal is to engage the imagination of my audience so that they can recognize themselves in my work. This is what many artists attempt to do in literature, theater, film, dance, and music, as well as the visual arts. The humanities teach us how to be human; that's why we need them and that's why they are called the humanities. I am drawn to the composition of ethnic and historical jewelry as a recognizable structure to hang my ideas on. I try to avoid being influenced by my peers and their design vocabularies. In most human cultures, jewelry is intertwined with customs and rites of passage—the kind of stuff I explore in my content. American design traditions are so new I have turned to older cultures because they have more to draw from.