This brooch is called Wishing. After writing some thoughts about brooches in Why Brooches? I wanted to provide a bit of insight to this piece. It is the image you see on this website and, after all, it is a piece that contributed to the development of the brooches and objects I would make next.

In the summer of 2013 I made this brooch for my sister. It was a celebratory piece. She had just earned her MFA in poetry and would soon be moving to Boston. At that point in time, I was preparing to enter into my last year of graduate school and was, after two years, still struggling to fine tune the aesthetics of my making. But it was summer and I didn't have to worry about editing artist statements or meeting critique deadlines. I was just making, alone in the stuffy studio with the lights off. What I made was large and wearable, a piece that would call attention to itself and to the wearer.

Large, wearable, and attention grabbing had never been intentions with which I ever set out. Of course, large to me at that point in time was barely over an inch and fifteen sixteenths. However, in letting this piece breathe, by making this world just a bit larger, I began to see how those who handled it remained curious about and engaged with it. What followed was a study in form, color, and texture through the format of brooches. I was able to take what I learned in making those brooches and translate it, even if I did compress it, into my objects.

As to the title, well, I had been introduced to Neko Case's Blacklisted ten years late. But I fell hard for her music and listened to that album almost non-stop. I Wish I Was The Moon, as well as Hard Way Home by Brandi Carlile, were at the top of my playlist. Between the songs I was listening to and the observations of those who saw the brooch often comparing it to the moon, my thoughts gravitated toward the curiosity and wonder surrounding the unknown, the anticipation of meeting it, and even the wanting and wishing for it.

KLE

Rings flash when we move our hands and earrings sway as we move our heads. Both draw attention and become part, become extensions of our bodies. Wearing a brooch is a bit subtler, I think, and a bit more involved than feeling cool metal slipping over your finger, warming to your body. The mechanism of the pin back provides a process or a ritual. It provides the performance of specific actions required to attach a brooch to clothing, that clothing which is as much a part of the body and the self as skin. There is something grounding, solid, and satisfying about a brooch with a well-made pin back. It is the knowledge that, unless otherwise designed to do so, it will not move, but will nonetheless call attention in its own distinct way. With this in mind, I make my brooches, my small worlds, hoping they will be discovered through eyes, hands, and bodies other than my own.

Above is a short statement I wrote on brooches that I wanted to share. Honestly, until I was asked to submit to the pop-up version of #ThisIsABrooch, which is part of Adorned Spaces at this year's Society of North American Goldsmiths conference, I had not thought about why I make brooches. However, I was asked to write a statement answering that very question in 200 words as part of my submission. Well, I do love a writing challenge, especially when its focus is to draw out the answers to "why?" It's a good start, that little brooch blurb, and I'm sure I will have more thoughts on it in the future.

As for the present, my thoughts are with the metalsmiths and brooch lovers at the SNAG conference in Boston, especially my UMass alumnae and friends who have put a lot of planning into the conference. I wish I could be there to see you all, but this weekend is also the start of a summer filled with the wedding celebrations of three lovely ladies! First up, a bridal shower for my little sister!

KLE