Mementos

During lockdown I participated in the Royal Society of Sculptors’ 10g challenge to make a small artwork out of 10g of wax (later to be cast in bronze). I came up with the lockdown locket below. It includes a small house trapped/safe inside a bubble (a bit like my neighbour’s house in the bottom of the glen below us) and a small house isolated outside (a bit like my house up on the hill). It started me thinking about how we lodge experiences and memories in objects and how these are transported from place to place and handed from person to person, necessarily being small and portable. I began to think about the relationship between sculpture and jewellery, both material objects that become charged up with associations. I was able to spend one session at a jewellery workshop exploring this before the pandemic once again closed it down. I made a snowdrop charm, inspired by the snowdrops that still bloom in the gardens of deserted crofts.