Gray Street Workshop: The Wonder of Things Held

Jess Dare, *Child’s Play* 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 2023, powder coated brass; *Child’s Play* 3, 2023, brass; Banjo Ramsay, *Drawing for Mum,* 2022

Gray Street Workshop: The Wonder of Things Held
Exhibitors: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman

Established in Tarntanya/Adelaide in 1985 by Anne Brennan, Catherine Truman and Sue Lorraine, Gray Street Workshop is one of Australia’s longest running collective studios for artists working in the field of contemporary jewellery and object making. Over Gray Street Workshop’s almost 40 years of operation, through the access bench facility, the workshop has provided a bridge between formal education, training and professional development to more than 100 jewellers from Australia and overseas.

The uncompromising commitment of this group of artists to their work and to a studio-based practice has enabled Gray Street to evolve into one of Australia’s most exciting and respected workshops. Gray Street Workshop is an exemplar of a sustained, innovative and enterprising artist-run initiative and has been the blueprint for the establishment of other artist collectives nationally and internationally. The ongoing conceptual strength, skill and integrity of the work produced by the partners is testament to the creative and supportive environment the workshop offers.

The current partners of Gray Street Workshop are Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman. While the years of experience and the areas of practice are different for each partner, the prevailing passion for making unites them. Fuelled by curiosity and a desire to respond to the world around them, these artists continue to question, challenge, explore and reinvent the critical role of art-making.

In The Wonder of Things Held, the artists present new works that focus on individual subjects of enquiry. The exhibition encapsulates a world of wonders: the wonder of a child’s insatiable curiosity, the wonder of nature’s ability to prevail, the wonder of human resilience, and the wonder of holding something made by hand that is imbued with the love, care and skill of the maker.

Photos: Connor Patterson

SHOP THE EXHIBITION

Jess Dare

“Since becoming a parent, my children and their influence in my life is visible in my practice. Watching them grow, learn and understand, witnessing how they are in the world, their unconditional love, insatiable curiosity and awe is inspiring.

I think one of the most joyful things about the jewellery and metal working skills I have acquired over the years is helping to turn my children’s drawings and ideas into tangible three dimensional objects. I love seeing their eyes light up with awe and delight when they can hold their own ideas in their hands, turn them over and sometimes even wear them.

This family of crowns are translations of a paper flower crown my son made, with its poppies coloured in scribbly red and each hand cut flower barely clinging on with sticky tape, makeshift, fragile and precious. The flower shapes on each crown have been taken from my son’s flower drawings over the years, a curious observer. They are playful, innocent reminders of childhood play, of lying on the floor surrounded by paper, incomplete drawings, scribbles, textas with missing lids, scissors, stapler, coloured pencils, chaos, fun, wonder and a moment’s quiet concentration.”

Lisa Furno

“This piece marks a shift in my life and work, born from my move from urban to rural living. This change has not only influenced my family's lifestyle but also deeply reshaped my approach to my making.

This work focuses on the theme of pattern and repetition, inspired by the new rhythms in my rural surroundings. Delving into how repetitive patterns can soothe and stimulate, both for me as the maker and for those who view and interact with the work.

I gravitate towards reclaimed and used materials, each with its own history and texture. These materials are pivotal to my making, bridging the gap between the past and the present. Their transformation under my hands is a testament to the potential for change and reinvention.

This tactile engagement brings to the forefront the wonder of things held – the physical connection with the materials that become an extension of my thoughts and feelings.”

Sue Lorraine

“The last few years, as Anne Brennan notes in her catalogue essay for my show Measured #2, have been “a huge global catastrophe – deaths, the separation from loved ones, the mismanagement of governments – and of its bathetic, personal and everyday struggles – the absence of toilet paper in the supermarkets, the ritual of masks and hand sanitiser, the sudden confinement of our lives within our domestic spaces.” The series titled Soft Boiled Screams was made during this time of turmoil and dislocation and is a wry, dry reaction to the daily domestic angst that spilled out everywhere.

The companion piece, Breakfast of Champions, is a nod to mid-century aesthetics, the heyday of the mulga wood souvenirs and my extensive collection of eggcups. It’s a formal arrangement of generally insignificant objects for a time when we really shouldn’t forget the little pleasures. The title of the work, which is grander than the piece, is taken from the novel by Kurt Vonnegut of the same name, a story that probes the human condition at its extremes and under pressure.

While our memories of the past few years are still fresh let’s hope we can nurture and appreciate those moment of calm, kindness and order.”

Sue Lorraine, *Soft Boiled Screams,* 2022, oxidised cast bronze, mulga wood egg cups

Sue Lorraine, *Breakfast of Champions,* 2023, heat coloured mild steel, mulga wood egg cups

Catherine Truman

“The Nelumbo Lotus Pond in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens draws people from all walks of life, watching for when the fresh electric green leaves unfurl and the exquisite pink buds rise from the dark muddy bed of tangled stems, spent pods and collapsed foliage. What a metamorphosis. A time when you can witness that beauty emerges from even the darkest of places. It is said that the Lotus needs to sleep in a bed of mud in order to rise afresh every day. We have much to learn from plants.

In 2019, I was concurrently artist in residence in the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia and the Ophthalmic Imaging Unit at Flinders Vision Clinic comparing the structures of the human eye with those of plants. There are some surprising parallels; both have photosynthetic cells; there are significant resemblances in the vascular and neural systems and both need light to function.

This work is called Lotus. The leaves are thermoplastic, embedded with photoluminescent powder so that they glow in the dark. They are cast impressions made from moulds of Sacred Lotus leaves collected from The Nelumbo Lotus Pond during my residency.

I have always felt that pathos goes hand in hand with beauty, it always seems transitory and impossibly fragile. We gather plants fresh from the garden so that we may bring them up close, so that we may somehow own them for a time. However, of course, this speeds their disintegration. There is always a price.”

Gray Street Workshop: The Wonder of Things Held is now showing at The Adelaide Railway Station until 16 April 2024

PEOPLE, ProfileGuest User25 January 2024Design, Craft, Jewellery