Fresh from the Maker's Dozen: earring show, demos, and classes at Sparrow Artspace, Calgary, November 2024

"Shimmy" post earrings in sterling silver and gold-filled chain. "Concrete & Graffiti Series". Christine Pedersen, 2024.

I’m really excited to be part of a jeweller’s artist residency this November, here in Calgary, at Sparrow Artspace. Thirteen local jewellery artists have each made 5 pairs of one of a kind earrings for a gallery show, plus there will be pop-up shows throughout the month with lots more hand-made jewellery, drop-in demos of jewellery-making, and a few community workshops too if you would like to try your hand (stacking rings, dangle earrings). You can find all the details on the group instagram (@makersdozen_yyc) and Facebook pages.

“Shimmy” earrings are one of my 5 pairs in the show; I worked with a favourite theme, “Concrete & Graffiti”, named after a large cocktail ring commission I made in 2012, and inspired by the urban landscape: industrial metal, locks, links, chains, and concrete. There’s lots of richly textured silver, strong forms, and a major emphasis on FUN—all of my earrings are a party for the ears, and I really enjoyed making them.

I will be popping in throughout November to work in the space—let me know if I can meet you there to see the show. General opening hours are hours are 11–6, Thu/Fri/Sat, November 2 - 30. Sparrow Artspace is at the bottom of southbound Edmonton Trail, in the historic De Waal block, a short walk from the east end of downtown Calgary.

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obsessing in public

obsessive chasing desire: the process in which the metal artist yields to their need to strike one piece of metal with carefully shaped tools for a very, very , long time. I will be doing a chasing metalwork demonstration at Bluerock Gallery in Black Diamond, Alberta, on Saturday December 5, 2015. I will have loads of samples - flat chased pictures, works in progress - and a very special holly sprig that I have been working on for over 90 hours… Look forward to seeing you there. “Run”. Brass portrait study. Chasing and repoussé. 14.5 x 9 x 3 cms. Christine Pedersen. 2014. ‘ Chasing ’ is the use of tools to create lines or texture marks on the surface of metal, it can be just like drawing. But the artwork can also be made into a three dimensional form by hitting and stretching the metal surface from behind—‘ repoussé ’—to sculpt relief, or volume, into the metal surface. The Statue of Liberty is probably the most famous repousséd object in the world - it’s also an awful l

hello you...

I always keep a piece from a new body of work: I need to spend time getting to know it. #15 “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow: Orange and Red Slurpee” pinched porcelain vase form. Height: 8 inches. Christine Pedersen. 2015. And so #15 stayed with us, and I schemed up a delightful challenge for myself: in the name of art—and pictures for my blog—I would fill it with flowers for every opportunity I could make up for a whole year. Sweet. First up: a lovely (and very modestly priced) bouquet from the supermarket for Christmas 2015. #15 “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow: Orange and Red Slurpee” pinched porcelain vase form. Seasonal flowers. Christine Pedersen. 2015. I always approach a vase thinking about the overall shape, as something to contemplate in my home, because most of the time it will probably stand empty. But as I make the piece, I end up imagining flowers and how they will fill it: how the stalks reach down to the bottom and push off at an angle; how wide a base nee

narrative jewellery: tales from the toolbox book launch

For every piece of jewellery I make there is a story. It can be simple, just a note on the “why?” that led to the forms and textures, or the feeling that I want to remember. Sometimes the single idea that could become a piece, conceived way before the act of making, can become so over-whelming that I need to write a whole new reality for the jewellery to exist within. That’s how it was for “Pull”, the first piece of jewellery in a body of work that became the ReFind Collection *. It caused me to look at materials in my home, especially the things that were routinely thrown away, very differently. It was like waking up to realize I just hadn’t been paying the right kind of attention to all the “stuff” in other areas of my life; realizing that maybe jewellery could be linked to something as obscure as industrial-scale food-processing and packaging—if I allowed my mind to receive the information, differently. I am very honoured that my necklace has been included in Mark Fenn’s new

metal is clay

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