Making tools: exploring process in jewellery and objects

This practice-led research project explores making in a contemporary jewellery context through enquiries into methods of making and by performing acts of making. The benefits of integrating social science style methods into creative practice research are explored by my collection of primary source material through a series of interviews with makers about their most precious tool in the contemporary jewellery and object field in Melbourne. The knowledge from this study provided the basis to produce the final creative outcomes of my research. The stories revealed by the makers in the study were composed into an archive to make this narrative history more accessible. The introduction of play into my established, highly structured method of making took the form of rumination procedures, utilising illustrations and a disruptive device which employed chance to insert pre-determined actions into my making process to push the work in unexpected directions. The value of this device was further tested by one hundred makers around Australia, with their experiences recorded through a survey. The final creative outcomes of this research examine performative acts of making which focus on process over object outcome. These playful exaggerations of making procedures were informed by my research into methods of making and contribute to the inclusion of performative concepts in contemporary jewellery.