Over here in jewellery-land, we are all hyped up and excited about what is happening. We are emerging makers who are establishing practices, studying techniques, reading contemporary theory and thinking about our craft's rich and complex history. We are experimenting with new materials and technologies, ideas about adornment, wearability, sustainability, and community. We are indebted to galleries who show object based work and have elevated the status of jewellery in this country, but most of us are unknown and uncertain of our place in those ranks. Jewellery is intrinsically about the relationship with the body. This project is about shedding artistic pretense, and bravely embracing the community aspect of our craft. Over here in jewellery-land, we are all hyped up and excited about what is happening. We are emerging makers who are establishing practices, studying techniques, reading contemporary theory and thinking about our craft's rich and complex history. We are experimenting with new materials and technologies, ideas about adornment, wearability, sustainability, and community. We are indebted to galleries who show object based work and have elevated the status of jewellery in this country, but most of us are unknown and uncertain of our place in those ranks. Jewellery is intrinsically about the relationship with the body. This project is about shedding artistic pretense, and bravely embracing the community aspect of our craft.The Concept:
Broach of the Month Club was created in an effort to reinstate the community aspect of traditional craft into the contemporary jewellery culture. The project is focused on the emotional and physical experience of wearing.

Twelve emerging jewellers submitted a brooch reflecting their unique attitude or mode of approaching jewellery and twelve wearers were recruited to wear, reflect and swap brooches in a book club format. This club is operated on a trust basis. The wearers are asked to wear the brooches out in public at least once during each month.

The Broach of the Month Club is a social group. It officially kicked off with an opening night party where wearers meet jewellers and photos were taken. While monthly updates to the blog are encouraged, each wearer was given a journal to write more private thoughts about the brooches and the project. Each month, the wearers meet and brooches are passed to the next participant. There are quarterly gatherings organised for the makers to interact with the wearers. The club will conclude with a closing night party where photos will again be taken and stories exchanged.

The Wearers :
The project is about to enter its third month, so it is still very young. So far, some wearers have focused on the physicality of wearing while others record the comments they receive while wearing in public. It is exciting to imagine this project motivating the wearers to wake up, put on a piece of jewellery and feel like there is an extra dimension added to their day. As if they were little spies secretly recording information and exchanges which they then feed back to the group over a glass of wine.

The reaction and motivation of the wearers is varied. Some wearers are approaching the commentary as a serious form of art criticism and others are taking a more playful approach. Both are relevant because they represent the reality of the wearing experience. Some of the self-employed wearers working in the creative sector have questioned how much constructive criticism should be made public and how much should given privately to the maker. The whole blogsphere concept was foreign to some wearers but the group momentum seems to have toppled any technological tentativeness.

The Makers:
For the makers it is very exciting that the responses are so varied and beyond what the makers would have received as normal feedback. For instance, one wearer is trying to travel with each brooch as much as possible and in the process is reexamining the kinds of comments she makes to other people regarding outfits/clothes/accessories after being bored by mundane expressions of interest in her brooch. While another wearer has noticed that wearing a brooch eased an otherwise tense work meeting.

At the opening party the comment was made that, "The wearers are more interesting than the makers." The wearers are truly a fascinating bunch.
The original plans were to use an existing book club on the north shore, but they were having a hectic year and couldn't quite manage it. I would still like to overtake an unsuspecting book club and do this project again. To insure that the makers would get their work back, the unofficial rules for wearers in the 2008 project was one degree of separation and had to be from outside the "jewellery community". The wearers are friends of friends, which means that although there are a variety of people involved the wearers' world view isn't radically different than that of the makers. I am very interested in expanding the wearer diversity and I think that it is the most exciting area to tinker with if I would continue on with future iterations of this project.

Please visit the links below for more information:
Broach of the Month Club.

Makers:
Jacqui Chan
Rachel Bell
Anne Baynham
Kristin D'Agostino

Wearers:
Citizen Click
Jambalalya

27/10/08