I spent whole September in Siena , Italy on artistic residency. I was honored to be invited there by Siena Art Institute to work on one of my bone related project. It was very productive time for me and I guess it will have long-term impact on my art.
Now it’s time to digest all I have experienced there. After all it was not only about bones: it was about meeting people that were open to interaction, it was about visiting places and getting inspired by other materials that I’ve found in the region (like alabaster from Volterra or green beach stones from the beaches nearby Piombino). I will share the ready pieces when the time comes as now I work in my studio in Kraków to finish the projects – in Siena I only had prepared the bones to be set in silver.
my sienese studio.
Staying focused on the work resulted in 3 sets that I made using: dog’s spine bones, deer’s antler, and some unidentified bones found by the Baltic Sea 🙂 I also made additional works that are not part of these sets.
Few times I visited The Natural History Museum in Siena and I admire their collection of bones (they even have a skeleton of a whale!), stones, fossils etc. Not only the collection is fascinating but also the way of exhibiting it (what a nice furniture!).
the whale & me. | photo: krzysztof kokosiński
One of the most surprising moments on my residency was meeting Mark Fenn, the author of the book ‘Narrative Jewelry: Tales from the Toolbox’. He was on holidays nearby and he decided to pay me a visit. We spend few hours on talking about jewelry and not only. I would really never expect to meet Mark in Italy!
englishman and pole in front of chinese-made fabric with reproduction of nederlandhish painter gerard david.
One of the last days on my residency I held a lecture and I explained how my interest in animal origin materials started. I shown some examples of my jewelry and also a lot of photos from ‘behind the scenes’: work in progress and some snapshots from my private collection ob bones. It was the first time I shown such intimate photos of my jewelry to the public !
This is the story in the nutshell. I recharged my batteries and I look forward to what the future brings 🙂
If you want to see more photos – visit my Facebook.
2018