Belt Buckles: Process 2012

In Bruce Metcalfs Essay On the nature of Jewellery (1989) it states that Jewellery is a small vehicle. 

Imbetween making bracelets i am making more buckles, because like the small vehicle of which Metcalf mentions, i am seeing this small sculptural space as a small canvass of expression. I am aware that Metcalf is refering to all Jewellery but in this case i am refering to my belt buckles.

I am not abandoning the wrist cuffs, but what has happened lately is i have been finding materials that are the same width as the existing mould in which i use to create the cassette buckles.

I keep finding materials that fit the mould almost perfectly, so in a way i am adapting to the materials, which seem to dictate a creative starting point.

Due to all these starting points i have been making a few more buckles, each with a  slightly different approach.

In my previous post i discussed how i beat the Montanna paint tin flat. The width of the tin fitted perfectly, and then how other issues of multi layered cultural contexts began to unravel.

In addition, the qualities of a piece of pre punched, yellow painted aluminium industrial scrap, i saw a type of stylized cartoon  animal which i have now also adapted into a belt buckle. For this design i am playing on the natural manifestation of which is taking place and cropping it to become a type of creature.

I have capped the back of this buckle with black resin to highlight the details of the eyes and nose, and left it in a very simplistic state.

In a slightly different approach i decided that i wanted to make a piece that in my opinion optimises the concept of recycling. Using red upcycled Aluminium inwhich was already painted scratched and slighltly marred i decided to pierce the face of Jesus and create a belt buckle using his image.

This was a legnthly and time consuming process, but was well worth the effort.

I then just happend to have a piece of scale model brick faced wall which i felt suited the back round. Initially i was going to use a black resin backing, but felt the wall had some street cred, and thought the combination worked well.

I did find i became quite precious about this piece, and the irony i keep noticing in my work, is the more battered and broken, and historically interesting a piece of found material is the more i feel that it maintains its own sense of identity and uniqueness.