In my artistic practice, I investigate concepts that evolve from an intimate connection to place and reflect a deep sense of knowing that place. I primarily work with vitreous enamel on altered and textured metals; this medium allows me to explore ideas through the use of imagery and mark making. The enamelling methods I work with give a tactile delicacy and the marks I make create a language or code. This is an invented language, a code that affords me to have a dialogue with the natural world. Jewellery is a remarkable language: a meaningful code, open for investigations. What triggers me is its capability of identifying and marking a body and as a carrier of meanings

My early work was informed by historical botanical and floral preservation including illustration, specimen collections, and botanical models. Inspired by Victorian floriography, notably the book “The Language of Flowers”; in which flowers formed a code or language used to convey feelings and emotions otherwise difficult or inappropriate to communicate. For a number of years, I explored the use of botanical imagery as a means of signalling. I used botanical imagery reflecting the seasons as metaphors for the stages in our lives signalling the passage of time and the transience of life.

My visit in 2000 to Harvard University to view the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants “The Glass Flowers” had a pivotal impact on my work. This unique collection of glass plant models created for Harvard between 1887 to 1936 by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka was beyond inspiring to me. Initially, I saw parts of the collection as perfect objects to wear and they inspired the forms and shapes of my Botanica series. Subsequent visits to the Blaschka collection has encouraged me to develop in-depth field studies of my own natural environment.

In 2010 my husband and I began to build a home, as the structure began to rise out of the hillside in front of my studio, I found myself fascinated with the linear marks in the earth and the repetitive sculptural structures created by the rebar. I collected images of architectural models and drawings; studying the abstract shapes and patterns within them. These suggestive qualities of the building are the basis of the Foundation Series.

I am currently investigating the notions of fragility and impermanence within the natural world that surrounds me. Walking, observing, and gathering are rituals that require a commitment to careful observation; I am slowing to comprehend the complexity of patterns, surfaces, and colours, the small minute details. Through the use of the delicate materials of vitreous enamel and the time consuming and demanding process, I aim to memorialize and commemorate the transience, unnoticed moments of our natural and domestic world. I aim for my work to be seen for its sensual, tactile qualities and to remind us of the significance of quotidian occurrences and the interconnectedness of things.

© 2016 JanSmith