Spring 2013 graduate work
My work is based heavily on ritual. According to Walter Benjamin, the advent of photography freed the work of art from ritual, as it made everything reproducible and therefore inauthentic. I find it hard to separate artwork from its history of ritual, and believe that it doesn’t need freed from it. Art comes from every day ritual, whether it be photography or the creation of objects. It comes from inside of a person, and from this person’s interests. Interests become ritual; they become something thought about and seen everywhere, and then looked for everywhere. Ingrained in art is ritual, whether that art it reproduced or not.
This body of work explores ritual in an every-day context. I started this work by exploring cultural rituals that people do every day without thinking why they do them. This led me to explore coming of age rituals. By exploring these topics, I came to the conclusion that ritual is important because of a craving of familiarity. Humans stick to repetitive, ritualistic, habitual behaviors because they are comfortable. These behaviors, though comforting, feed into the restrictions that we put on ourselves in our daily lives.
Carmen Smith is an MFA candidate at Columbus College of Art and Design. She received her BFA in jewelry an metals at Bowling Green State University in 2012.
This body of work explores ritual in an every-day context. I started this work by exploring cultural rituals that people do every day without thinking why they do them. This led me to explore coming of age rituals. By exploring these topics, I came to the conclusion that ritual is important because of a craving of familiarity. Humans stick to repetitive, ritualistic, habitual behaviors because they are comfortable. These behaviors, though comforting, feed into the restrictions that we put on ourselves in our daily lives.
Carmen Smith is an MFA candidate at Columbus College of Art and Design. She received her BFA in jewelry an metals at Bowling Green State University in 2012.
Fall 2012 Graduate work
This series comes from researching mourning practices in Native American and African tribes, and in the Victorian era. The primary material used is clothing from people in my life who have died. Clothing takes on the shape, smell, and daily use of the people who own it, and retains these aspects after it is done being worn. In this way, it can be a connection to the person who owned it. By dissecting these very personal items, I am repurposing them and fitting them to another shape, even though they retain the signs of life imparted to them by the previous owners.
In creating this work I responded to the materials in relation to the research. In responding to my perception of grief and the way it affects us, I made immediate gestures to create this work. I also started to explore the area between what is a garment and what it jewelry. I am interested in the ambiguity of the things we wear.
In creating this work I responded to the materials in relation to the research. In responding to my perception of grief and the way it affects us, I made immediate gestures to create this work. I also started to explore the area between what is a garment and what it jewelry. I am interested in the ambiguity of the things we wear.