i was looking at my last post and i realized that i don't think i've ever given an explanation on this blog for the use of lichens in my work. this is odd since they appear so frequently as of late.
in my fourth year at OCAD i had to take a jewellery concept class. we were basically introduced to different media throughout the term and then had to create work in response to them.
for one project we had to respond to Alice Munro's The Moons of Jupiter. the narrator felt a sense of shame similar to that of a mold growing over her when she compared her poor upbringing in rural Ontario to her husband's bourgeois-like background.
from this i looked at the lichen to represent the shame and their relationship since a lichen is a symbiotic organism that forms a close and long term relationship with a different biological species. because the lichens' effects are widespread and long lived they represent her baggage - her upbringing, and they are not something that can be removed. the pins i made represent how the narrator has come to terms with the differences between her husband's family and her own as well as how she will carry that baggage for as long as she lives.
since then i've been drawn to this idea of emotional baggage - of it being tangible, far reaching and oftentimes overwhelming. but i'm simultaneously interested in the idea of resilience, of coming to terms with things, of accepting them as part of your life, wearing them openly, and moving forward in whatever way you can.
so whenever you see a new lichen piece from me that's what's on my mind.
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