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Talismans for the soul
Every piece of jewellery tells a story. Jewellery embodies the tale its maker wants to share and creates new dialogues with wearer and viewer alike.
Objects kept and collected, semi precious stones, driftwood, song lyrics that pop into my head and remind me of people and places, pebbles from beaches -totems of place and belonging grounding connecting us back to the ocean and memories of where we come from. Memory and story are ascribed to objects.
Some pieces are inscribed with secret/hidden text ( shared with the wearer)… messages of hope, strength, discovery and joy for passage through liminal spaces of transition and uncertainty. Created with intention at every stage of the process and rituals to imbue each object with positive energy.
I invite you to select pieces that resonate – connecting through colour form, memory and story and/or unconscious needs and to wear them to promote/reflect on self-discovery, self-expression and self-love. Designed to be worn to inspire you on your journey of a unique life filled with great stories, love and beautiful memories.
The how...
I use recycled sterling silver, copper, brass and aluminium. Creating each piece through manual processes. Some objects are hand cast from recycled scaps of silver, cold connected with hand made rivets or soldered. Bezels, wire cages, hollow form “message” boxes, signature chains and connections are all hand created. Each piece is truely unique to itself and the energy of story that it contains.
Talismans for the soul adornments
Click on any image for more details.
Purchase available from studio only for existing clients (prior to public exhibition/launch in 2023).
Please get in touch via contact page details. Private appointment studio visits only.
My colours
Coloured rhymes with othered,
The “other” no one understands
Not black or white,
In betweenish, but not even.
The “left overs” that the man did not care to define too carefully by design.
Coloured the word,
Enslaved is the history.
Forced couplings and sexual assaults,
My grandmother’s, mother’s, mother.
Herstory, my story,
Intertwined through trauma intergenerational
Now inspirational…
Because your white is somehow,
No longer something more normal than…
Your white is no longer the default,
By which you get to judge me now,
In this other place,
Twice removed from belonging.
Othered again as immigrant,
“Where were you born and bred?”
Left considering my confusion and delusion,
The toxicity and irony of if or how or why,
I identify with the word “coloured”.
But I can walk the ambiguity of the now,
So much better than you!
Because the unknown…This in between-ness? This fluidity?
…it runs through my blood… my bones…
It is part of my rich tapestry…my story.
I am culturally abundant.
I am colourful.
So I reclaim it!
And whether or not I choose to rename it,
The word is mine.
It is a verb.
I will walk it,
I will cook it and eat it,
Creole delights in constant transition and migration,
I will unlearn it and redesign it.
I will write it and sing it.
I will colour in the erasures,
That you applied to my rich, cultural heritage
When you gave me that word,
Race classification: coloured,
The birth certificate,
Documentation of coloniality…
Not my identity.
Who I am and who I am still becoming,
Is more colourful than the kind of coloured you feared and imagined unworthy.
I was given a name before you called me coloured…
My ancestor was given a name before you enslaved her…
These are my colours, the palette I use to reclaim my story!
The girl who transitioned from an elephant to a mouse and back again
![image1[15]](https://lennimk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/image115-768x882.jpeg)
![image0[82]](https://lennimk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/image082-768x901.jpeg)
“
Fragments, kept and collected… a memory unravels. …At 10 yrs old she was cast as a baby elephant in a ballet concert and learnt the difference between petite, and short and fat. She remembers longing to be the beautiful, delicate little mouse- If only that 10 year old knew that one day she would no longer hope or wish to be anyone other than herself.
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Process: Refabricating cloth from scraps… past made present. All the discarded, forgotten things of memory and self- remixed, reimagined, reconstructed, woven together into a totem of strength and love. Kept and collected, vintage thread and textile remnants, and scraps of tangled threads are reconstructed into “fabric” – patch worked together. The two process of creating fabric – using formal, practiced crochet stitches and the organic process of tangling, weaving and patching threads and scraps together, symbolise the nature of both identity and memory – their malleability and construction. This piece symbolises the bits of our identity that we think we have carefully constructed. The things we present on the outside – the costumes and masks we wear; and – the bits we draw together in past made present – through memories and stories. The things we recall and share and all the tangled threads we keep hidden on the inside to meet expectations and/or to protect ourselves.
Re-emerging
The door is open…
The gate too…
Still drifting here in the space between…
One foot inside the threshold, the other out…
Why am I not moving?
Everything, absolutely everything… needs to be done yesterday.
While everyone tries to clamber their “normal” back
Into lives and a world that has already shifted
From where we left off, before disrupted.
Is “normal” somewhere I need to be?
Was I there before?
A friend suggests ” I’m that age now”… like this is a secret code about
Not knowing anything about anything anymore …
As if age makes you incapable of unlearning”…
Is that where normal is and where I should return to?
Now?… right now, I want to be still and quiet
I need to be… still and quiet
But ‘normal” asks me to return … to be productive and recover
Produce and return,
Re-emerge…
From what ? … did something stop?
I feel like I’ve been on forever…
Always on but maybe not on the right channel
… produce and return?
My making isn’t for production,
It’s for being…and becoming
It’s for drifting between until something emerges…something comes
To unlearn, listen and discover…
To speak … sometimes in half completed sentences
To manifest then dissolve… repeat…
To hear …words in my ears that I can’t form into sounds in my mouth
Ssssssssssssss… ssssssshhhhhhh
Sometimes I speak and it’s all shit I don’t believe and it goes unnoticed…
Maybe that is when I return to normal?…
Ssshhhhhh…
Close the door.
Listen.
She’s singing … “give me the beat girl to free my soul I want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift away”
Eyes closed… one foot on the threshold
Drift in between…
Be…
Become…
Re-emerge…
Repeat.