“ Often called the Dark Night of the Soul. Periodically occurs in the life of the everyday disciple. Imposed by the soul upon the hastening personality. Provides time for integration of lessons.”
Smoky quartz and blackened objects and single bronze jewellery box with articulated petals. 18kt rose gold ring, amertrine & cinnamon diamonds
“The soul is like a violin string: it makes music only when it is stretched.”
The concept of ‘Attavanti’ began as a way to interpret an untitled design by Attavante degli Attavanti. Attavanti was a Florentine painter who created exquisite illuminated manuscripts in the 15th and early 16th centuries. During my research of baroque and rococo patterns and was inspired by the notion that ‘the Baroque artist … longs to enter into the multiplicity of phenomena, into the flux of things in their perpetual becoming – his compositions are dynamic and open and tend to expand outside their boundaries; the forms that go to make them are associated in a single organic action and cannot be isolated from each other.’ Baroque and Rococo, Germain Bazin, 1998
Bronze, black and copper, green amethyst, green beryl, amertrine, blue topaz, 22kt yellow & 18kt rose gold rings
“A new and progressive art style rose in the early 17th century like a phoenix out of the ashes and broken columns of classical culture ”
Attanvati’s use of acanthus leaves seamlessly conveys this design language in miniature painting. As written by Bazin, ‘baroque craftsman aspired to go beyond the mere appearance of materials, connecting with a deeper truth that permeates the hidden nature of reality.’ I envisioned the exploration of Attavanti’s design would be an extension the symbolism and natural forms of his creation.
“Baroque craftsman aspired to go beyond the mere appearance of materials, connecting with a deeper truth that permeates the hidden nature of reality.”
22kt yellow gold & black rhodium, smoky quartz, citrine, congac & cinnamon diamond rings
Translating his miniature painting into metal using lost wax techniques and goldsmithing would breathe new life and meaning into the world of things. At the time I was searching for the meaning of desire and its relationship with mysticism in the context of beautiful things, precious materials and craftsmanship. Attavanti is the embodiment of refining and understanding the similarities and differences of bronze casting and the finer finishing methods of goldsmithing and silversmithing.
Center stone approx 50 carat, machined cut oval smoky quartz 35x45mm, silver and rhuthenium brooch
“After I had completed the piece unexpected and challenging situations presented themselves. On reflection and over the course of 24 months, these contrasting experiences presented the opportunity to take part in a renewed inner dialogue. Each time the result would reveal how much I had internalized within. Only after the work had been completed and upon reflection was I able to access exactly the stages of contrast and the results of how I dealt with them. The extent of how much I had internalised and integrated leading upto and throughout these testing stages of my psyche was then revealed.”
18 & 22kt yellow gold, topaz, smoky quartz, citrine, congac & cinnamon diamond rings
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
“The thoughts you have and the emotions you assign to them have an ability to very subtlety build in strength. Without being conscious of this is like playing a song without learning how to play the instrument. Finding the nature and rhythm of the song is the song.
Conceptualizing, planning and making Attanvanti was a period where I had tested my understanding of the new thought teachings that would firstly help to tune my instrument. This analogy cannot completely convey the gravity in which we experience (I believe this can be found within the idea of The Dark Night of the Soul) the most contrasting life experiences but it can help to simplify and quiet the mind. It is in the quiet that more than often we connect to the hidden truths that exist but only become visible when we play the correct notes, their sequences and crescendos.”
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Black rodium & 18kt rose gold, red garnet & amertrine, cognac diamonds
“Baroque art emerged out of this struggle for freedom from old shackles and inhibitions and spoke with an energetic and highly eloquent rhetoric of progress, of expanding the range of human activities, of grandiose achievements, of ceaseless activity and motion... The element of motion runs as a rhythmical undercurrent through all the arts from architecture to music”
“To reach a higher level of being, you must assume a higher concept of yourself.”