DISPLAY CABINETS – MY NEW VITRINE, ASHORNE 5
Concept
When an object really connects with you, it is either because you believe in its history, however brief that might be, or, if it’s been with you for some time, the object becomes part of your history. So when people talk about possessions that hold sentimental value, I think that just means it’s a reflection of their own story. My display cabinets are designed to hold things with this in mind.
Inspiration
This latest vitrine is a revision of my 2017 series, the genesis of which was from reading The Hare with The Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. It describes the glazed cabinets that housed Japanese netsukes or keepsakes that moved around the world from owner to owner over the last 200 years. The book made me really consider how we store, treasure and display our possessions and how we spend our lives discovering, sourcing, owning, inheriting and cherishing artefacts.
This vitrine has been refined to include a slim, patinated steel, perimeter reveal with an off-set vertical divide to create two asymmetrical pivot doors with a brass handle detail. Designed as a pair to sit either side of a fireplace, the two cabinets’ asymmetry is also mirrored so the slim door sits adjacent to the chimney breast. The form is split into 3 parts to reflect the strong architectural detail in the room for which is was first commissioned – an open top section to mirror the deep, ornate cornice, the central glazed cabinet to reflect the tall walls and the base as a nod to the high skirting board.
Final piece
Weber Industries overall craftsmanship is extremely fine and coupled my dark on dark palette, it invites close inspection to enjoy its precision. I think this links to what I’m fundamentally interested in: a concern with viewer and user participation. In asking you to consider how something was made, I’m trying to invite a slow appreciation of the hand-made. Then I hope you may ask why it was made. Pieces such as Woodview, a reading book table, present an obvious and clear message of providing an object to help counter our frenetic lifestyle. However this endeavour is, I hope, prevalent in all my work – a strong desire to cherish the fine and applied arts, to reduce the unnecessary acquisition of unremarkable objects and to engage slowly with artist-makers.
