11.28.2013

...hi there, nice to meet you...



...here is our second installment of member interviews, introducing tessa...


1. What's your creative thing? 
Hand pierced copper and brass jewellery combined with glass, cord and now chain. The metal motifs are taken from the natural world – indigenous plants and  birds, feathers, herbs and so on.  

2. Describe your dream studio? 
Oh yum. A double height space with a massive mezzanine level, lit by a huuuge sky light. The bottom level is chock a block full of every kind of tool and piece of equipment I could ever need to return to making large functional metal ware. I see racks of steel stakes, furnaces, lathes of all sizes, sanders and saws, chest of drawers bursting with files and things I’ll never use, but just really love having, for in case! Upstairs is a lot prettier, with white concrete floors,  a little lounge /design area with bookcases filled with magazines from everywhere on one side and on the other, the walls are lined with trestle tables for laying out, assembling and  packaging  jewellery and bowls. Lots of big windows, so with the skylight, the whole place is constantly bathed in light. Oh, and enormous amazing plants. And a sheep skin rug or two. And a cleaner to come once a week
(I know my limitations and sweeping and dusting are two of them!).

3. What fuels your creative energy? 
People -  A chance meeting with an old friend, a stranger with something special about them and proper chats with my best people.

4. The first creative thing you can remember making?
A little pottery jug, I think I was 9. I made it on a potter’s wheel, and was very proud. My mom still has it, as well as the jug my older, jealous brother made in competition!

5. The first creative thing you were paid to create?
Two tiny silver bowls on long wire legs for a little old lady in Edinburgh who loved silverware, but never displayed it. She would commission pieces, and then store them in boxes in her home. I guess they are still there in some dusty pile.

6. That one thing you're so glad you made?
The decision to come home to Cape Town.

7. If you could live inside any artwork in the world, which would it be?
“Spring” by Cy Twombly – first of all I simply love the artist’s name and would probably just wander around muttering it; second, it’s so light and messy in his work, like living in a scatty fairy land.

8. If you could collaborate with one famous creative, dead or alive, who would it be?
Li Edelkoort – she seems so scary, I’d have to bring my A game; our collaboration would be years ahead of the pack and therefore the schizznizz; and she DOES things with her status – she started an art school in Poland I’d kill to go to –the course a combination between an design and humanities degree – swoon.

9. The local design magazine you always read?
I’m a bit bad about buying magazines, but I do love Elle Deco and House and Leisure and the occasional Marie Claire. I really wish I could warrant buying Wallpaper and Vogue, but somehow I feel too guilty forking out all that cash. (is it OK that I sometimes buy Heat too??)

10. The salutation at the end of your email? 
It depends – for day job situations where I want to be just a little intimidating, -  nothing. 
The message and bam. Send.
For friendly happy emails (and yes, I should know better) it’s a Gossip Girl influenced ex oh ex oh,
Other wise, a good old stock standard “regards”/”kind regards” although a wanky “Best” has been known to have slipped out on occasion…

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