Heather White van Stolk
West Roxbury, Massachusetts
Honeysuckle Torque
collection of Susan Beech
neckpiece, sterling silver, 18k gold and oil pigment, vine
cast from honeysuckle plant,
flowers molded and cast from human navels (belly
buttons).
Recently,
I have been creating Botanical Fictions, jewelry that collaborates with nature and the body. These fictions
manifest as large, flamboyant corsage brooches, sensual vine-like neckpieces,
and tiny pins. They use fragmented sections of the body, some of which are
recognizable like the navel, nipple, eye, lip and teeth, and others more
obscure like birth or beauty marks. Once these sections of the body are cast,
reconfigured and placed back on the body, they evoke. The botanical forms are
beautiful, graceful and sometimes humorous as they narrate sensual and raw
passages.
The
use of body parts as adornment has a significant history. It exists in
sentimental genres (mourning jewelry, portraiture jewelry and milagros) and
that of the ancient warrior (wearing fragments of the conquered). In
contemporary Western culture however, deconstruction of the human figure can be
viewed as disembodiment. It is through my conscientious use of the body with
the ritual of repetition, the process of casting, and the creation of wearable
flower formations that these works create a botanical gestalt.
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