This summer and fall I am visiting four cities that are home to exceptional collections of decorative arts. While I play the part of tourist, visiting historic sites and buying souvenirs, I develop a relationship with each new and hereto unfamiliar city. The urban passages that are particular to my time in each city render aspects more familiar and, over the course of a week, personal landmarks develop. Not the monuments of postcards and keychains but familiar elements that become signifiers of place in a practical and meaningful way. I will then design a means by which the chosen feature might be assimilated to my body as ornament. I will photograph, sketch and create models of the element that will then be transformed, upon return to my studio, through the highly skilled fabrication techniques of silversmithing.
I will be visiting the following historical masterpieces and collections of metalsmtihing:
- Rene Lalique and Limoges enamels (among others) at the Decorative Arts Museum, and Louvre in Paris, France
- Benvenuto Cellini's Saliera and other treasures of the Kunsthistorisches Museumm Vienna, Austria
- Johan Melchior Dinglinger's Royal Household of the Grand Mogul and other masterpieces at the Historical Green Vault and New Green Vault in Dresden, Germany
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