Roseanne Bartley

Timelapse Video, instruction booklet, artifact, digital image.

Seeding the Cloud: a walking work in process is an iterative and distributed process led work. Initially progressed through solo walks in which plastic fragments are gleaned then stitched with silk thread and pearlescent beads. Public architecture offers up temporary work stations, and in meeting with thread’s end the linear trace is tied off, made ready to wear on the journey home.

Subsequently, the project was open-sourced. I made a pocket sized guidebook and hosted group walks in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Auckland. Subsequently the project has been remote hosted, led by others in Canberra, Hongkong, Edinborough, Auckland, Iran and Dunedin.

Link to self-led seeding instruction pdf https://roseannebartley.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/beadposter-layout_art.pdf

Timelapse Video; Digital and Polaroid Images;

Text: Verb Chain Scores, Project Planning in Rhyming Verse, Blackboard Inscription;

Accessories: 30 x Earring Wires Hooks and Hoops

Transit Van

In collaboration with Public Assembly, Roseanne designed and co-produced a performative and social compendium of jewellery concepts and techniques, with input drawn from Melbourne’s contemporary jewellery maker community.

Operating from a studio located in converted transit van PDF Exchange activated alongside programmed Radiant Pavilion events.

Synthesising DIY tutorials with traditional training methods the project facilitated an alternate framework for transmission for tacit knowledge. The project acquired momentum through repetition of a jeweller’s task with conceptual and technical resolutions generated via verbal instruction – sharing of specialised know-how between a revolving visiting instructor participant ‘VIP’ and Lynda, as an aspiring in residence ‘student’. Stylistic variations were observed, abstracted by revocalising the verbs and annotated as sequences of actions into a verb chain.

These notations were gifted to contributing makers and relayed to the wider public via conversational and PDF formats.

By facilitating exchange, discourse and distribution in public space, PDF Exchange* playfully re-articulates institutionalised methods and established alternate economies for valuing and disseminating tacit knowledge.

*Portable Demonstration Facility

Project Reviews:

Crafted Words—AJF & Radiant Pavilion By Meredith Turnbull https://artjewelryforum.org/radiant-pavilion%E2%80%94illuminations

P.D.F.* Exchange *Portable Demonstration Facility by Anna Dunnill

http://www.radiantpavilion.com.au/anna-dunnill.html

Photography: Keelan O’Hehir and Bryony Jackson

Accoutrement, Digital Image, Score, artist statement.

In a series of public walks, the technique of brooch-broaching became a tool through which to speculate on the origin story of jewellery, the narrative of which I termed a paleo-fantasy.

Near the beginning of the walk, we turned down a scaffold-covered alleyway. Participants were greeted with a dark, dusty cavernous space that smelt faintly of urine. At its entrance, I describe how archeologists recently discovered the oldest remnants of a bead-like form in Blombos cave, an archeological site on the coast of South Africa, and I invite participants to hypothesize what came first string or bead.

In the illumination of a handheld spotlight and working with symbols in primary shapes and colours participants began to index ornament via the brooch-broaching technique. With this activity, we endeavour to enact a preconscious relationship between ornament, language, space, and time. While our gestures may not cast in the same configuration that Plato was envisaging with his cave allegory, small shifts in perception begin to occur just the same.

Further along, we seek out illumination in the complimentary lighting of foyers, parking lots and shopping malls, and pause to share in the sustenance of a paleo snack of blue-berries and 90 percent chocolate. We exchange old and new stories of jewellery and discuss how ‘environments’ and ‘bodies’ are, according to feminist philosopher Karen Barad, co-constituted. Bodies, that is, ‘human,’ ‘environmental’ or otherwise are in Barad’s words integral ‘parts of,’ or dynamic configurations of, what is.

On one occasion our shadowy behaviour is deemed threatening. We’re not given a specific reason for our ejection, but initial advice is that what we are doing is out of the ordinary, and it requires centre management permission.

The culmination of the walk’s effect was reliant on the sun turning up and performing on schedule, but for two of the walks it clouds over and the sun’s emergence was fleeting, on the last outing it started to rain. This wouldn’t be the only time that I observe, working in conjunction with the elements is a real test to the spirit of cooperation.

Materials: Blackened Sterling Silver

Arms, legs and spines describe elements of typeface in graphic design. In the making of an Alphabet of Rings however, my fingers and thumbs perform as an anatomical point of reference through which I determined the contour and form of each letter-ring.

Initially my criteria for wearability aligned quite nicely with the principles of typography, early on the rings easily demonstrate an upright orderliness and legibility – and then ‘f’ happened.

More of a flip than a flop, the pretence of these objects as rings remains open to curiosity and engagement, for it is the hole in their logic that encourages the viewer/wearer into an embodied engagement with an open-ended play on words.

This series subtly shifts the value of the alphabetic sign from the emblematic to the interactive, an adjustment that wearer/ audiences demonstratively engage with, playfully adorn and freely gesticulate in correspondence with the letter-rings.

The Making and Unmaking of Daisy Stop: Motion video (2017), Ring Manual (Object), charcoal wall text (Verb Chain), fact sheet (Foraging Links) & Fieldwork (short story)

Fieldwork

Anna and I met up for lunch in a Brunswick cafe, and in a breathless relay she tells me about her recent forays into the art world, and I tell her of my recent foraging exploits in rural Victoria. When I say recent I mean instructive – learning more about weed and fungi identification in community workshops. These efforts complement my existing range of fruits, fungi and greens I currently procure from over and under fences, or from just around the corner.

We arrange to meet up in a few weeks at DeChene Reserve to pick, slit, and thread daisies into chains and then through an advanced manoeuvre, consume – bite, chew, and then dispel as a continuous process (if possible). I think it sounds like fun but Anna is less convinced of the strange connection I’m making between adornment and nourishment. I’m not sure either, or at least how exactly my proposition will pan out. I try to reassure her with a quick summary of my knowledge. ‘Dandelions are well regarded as a bitter green. Leaves and flowers are high in vitamins and can be eaten raw in salads or cooked like other greens. They’re easy to identify’. I endeavour to reassure her by saying, ‘I’ll bring along a fact sheet’.

I arrive prepared with a chopping board and a paring knife. On second thought, I think they look too brutal for the genteel action we are about to commit. I packed them for Anna, being of artistic persuasion I wasn’t sure if she bit her nails – the keratinous extension of the thumb is the tool required to impart the split. Location, season, and weather are in alignment. It’s rained recently, the grass is long and lush and fortunately for us, the council mowing budget has always lapsed by this time of year. I indicate areas to avoid, along fence lines or landscaping furniture, rock features, and around trees. These I advise knowingly, are sites where dogs urinate and council workers spray poisons.

We begin harvesting. ‘Flowers and stems’, I offer in guidance, but Anna seems perfectly able to intuit this technique and we arrive back to where knife and chopping board are patiently waiting.

As a co-elaborator Anna is fantastic, her enthusiasm for the task is bountiful. Dandelion on the other hand seems to carry on with a mind of its own, coming untethered when faced with teeth, tongue, and jowl. Together we persist. Intuitively I follow the course of the action, feeding Anna dandelion flower heads, as she splits, threads, suspends then mouths, chomps, and chews them. Normally, making daisy chains from flowers is associated with innocence, tranquil past times, or green living. In our hands the activity becomes unfettered, the articulation of Anna’s jaw is sensational, ferocious, and carnal.

Anna and I met up for lunch in a Brunswick cafe, and in a breathless relay she tells me about her recent forays into the art world, and I tell her of my recent foraging exploits in rural Victoria. When I say recent I mean instructive – learning more about weed and fungi identification in community workshops. These efforts complement my existing range of fruits, fungi and greens I currently procure from over and under fences, or from just around the corner.

We arrange to meet up in a few weeks at DeChene Reserve to pick, slit, and thread daisies into chains and then through an advanced manoeuvre, consume – bite, chew, and then dispel as a continuous process (if possible). I think it sounds like fun but Anna is less convinced of the strange connection I’m making between adornment and nourishment. I’m not sure either, or at least how exactly my proposition will pan out. I try to reassure her with a quick summary of my knowledge. ‘Dandelions are well regarded as a bitter green. Leaves and flowers are high in vitamins and can be eaten raw in salads or cooked like other greens. They’re easy to identify’. I endeavour to reassure her by saying, ‘I’ll bring along a fact sheet’.

I arrive prepared with a chopping board and a paring knife. On second thought, I think they look too brutal for the genteel action we are about to commit. I packed them for Anna, being of artistic persuasion I wasn’t sure if she bit her nails – the keratinous extension of the thumb is the tool required to impart the split. Location, season, and weather are in alignment. It’s rained recently, the grass is long and lush and fortunately for us, the council mowing budget has always lapsed by this time of year. I indicate areas to avoid, along fence lines or landscaping furniture, rock features, and around trees. These I advise knowingly, are sites where dogs urinate and council workers spray poisons.

We begin harvesting. ‘Flowers and stems’, I offer in guidance, but Anna seems perfectly able to intuit this technique and we arrive back to where knife and chopping board are patiently waiting.

As a co-elaborator Anna is fantastic, her enthusiasm for the task is bountiful. Dandelion on the other hand seems to carry on with a mind of its own, coming untethered when faced with teeth, tongue, and jowl. Together we persist. Intuitively I follow the course of the action, feeding Anna dandelion flower heads, as she splits, threads, suspends then mouths, chomps, and chews them. Normally, making daisy chains from flowers is associated with innocence, tranquil past times, or green living. In our hands the activity becomes unfettered, the articulation of Anna’s jaw is sensational, ferocious, and carnal.

Performance still, Scores, Accoutrements.

Working with sound as a material the performance Sonic Necklace reconfigures the social and performative effects of jewellery as a temporal acoustic event. Participants experience a vibratory trace of a necklace gifted via the resonant pulsating of a reception bell, enacted via a ritualistic encircling of the participant’s neckline. Sonic Necklace was presented in conjunction with two other temporal jewellery actions; ephemeral works that expand upon traditional expressions of ornamentation and conventional notions of jewellery’s materiality. The corresponding works made evident the effect of air and light respectively (Smoke Rings 2017, and Broach-brooching 2006-2017) and the use of breathe and shadow as a technique to leverage affect. Public engagement in these actions was followed by a panel discussion that responded to the question What Do You Think of When I Say the Word Jewellery? Click to view a video recording of the actions and panel discussion. (Please note the example of Sonic Necklace given in the video was stepped at a greater distance than usual as the participant wasn’t wearing hearing protection)

The workshop was generously assisted by Lynda Roberts and Ceri Hann form Public Assembly.

My Shadow Wears: Barcelona 2013

My shadow Wears – Hands-free: Walking the Ring Road shared trail 2016

On a return visit to Barcelona, I performed the first iteration of the brooch-broaching technique.

Stepping into this walk I wasn’t quite sure where I was or which direction I was heading in. In an effort to resolve my sense of internal chaos I began to orient myself by positioning my body relative to the solar rays of the sun and cast my silhouette in alignment with detritus on the ground. My efforts to simultaneously broach and index a brooch registered on the screen of my smartphone.

In the to and fro of practising this technique I began to observe a loosening of the armature between the precious jewellery of the jewel, and the distinguishing features of me, myself, I. The cumulative effect of this ornamental event absorbed me and correspondingly any concern for a destination, or an arrival began to dissipate. The drift of which recalls the dadaist practice of psycho-geography.

On my return to Australia, I revisit brooch-broaching and in an effort to reflexively perform circumnavigation I began to walk the Ring Road Trail; a shared pathway that runs alongside an arterial freeway that intermittently connects the outer-suburban network of Melbourne.

In performing the open arm technique I was assisted by the workings of a makeshift chest-mounted selfie stick.

Keen to expand on the connectivity of this experience I made a pocket-sized artist booklet. I printed off miniature polaroids from my phone by using a small wireless printer and mounted the polaroids onto folded cards. The memetic feature of this mapping device performatively activates the open arm gesture in the hands of the viewer/participant.

Photo Credit Christian Schallert

Huaman Neckalce was performed in a public square in Barcelona in 2005.

‘Environments’ and ‘bodies’ are, according to feminist philosopher Karen Barad co-constituted. Bodies, that is, ‘human,’ ‘environmental’ or otherwise) are in Barad’s words integral ‘parts of,’ or dynamic configurations of, what is.

The making of Human Necklace drew inspiration from watching interlinked circular formations of dancing bodies perform the traditional Spanish dance the Sadana, native to Catalonia. ln the case of Human Necklace, the orientation of the ‘body’ was turned outward, to allow for dynamic engagement with the affectivity of the worlds worlding. The ornamental effect of this work was encouraged by interactions with inter-related phenomena. For example, the security guard bottom right, who is in the process of requesting we take our leave, plays on this occasion the supplemental role of the pendant.

The language of jewellery continues to inform this sequence of necklaces in terms of colour saturation, image arrangement, and scale. To give you an idea of the size and placement the central portrait was installed on the wall at a height and size to fit a standard measure of the human body.