Maria Hamond
2023 Emerging Artist Award
The 2023 Emerging Artist was chosen from the applicants of the So Fresh + So Clean 2023 student exhibition, and awarded $1000
In 2023 Maria Hammond received a Bachelor of Arts in Product Design and Craft, from Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
I'm driven by sustainability and believe that jewellery can make a statement about our relationship with the environment. By using materials that go unnoticed, or go to waste, I seek to create pieces that are both beautiful and responsible, that reflect the beauty in aging and the stories that are embedded within the materials themselves. My work carries a sense of narrative, connecting wearers with their own personal histories and the wider stories of their environment, through the materials that surround them.
My collection is inspired by a derelict industrial building and its decayed materials, which I believe have a unique beauty and character that reflect local history and experiences of life. As it is reclaimed by nature, I am reminded of the cycle of life and death, and am filled with a sense of hope and possibility. Mirroring the transformative process of time and the representation of memory in buildings and objects, my practise includes burning, patinating, oxidising, and carving.
Answers and Artworks by Maria Hammond
Maria Hammond, Fragments With a Future, video.
I hope that my work will tour various exhibitions, sharing my celebration of often overlooked, worn, industrial materials. Hopefully it will outlive me as a reminder of my work as an artist. However, if the building in which it resides should also one day fall into ruin and decay then the wood would decay, maybe allowing new plants to grow through and the metals would continue to corrode until just oxides remain.
Steel is one of the most sustainable metals as it is the most widely recycled. I keep the offcuts to either make new pieces from the shapes that emerge and those I don’t I collect to recycle. The timber in my pieces is ash, a more sustainable wood as it is fast growing and self-seeding and currently in plentiful supply due to the ash dieback across Europe. Before turning, I cut the pieces down to size and use these offcuts for rings and smaller pieces. The collected saw dust I use in the garden as mulch.
What events led to you becoming a metalsmith?
I formally worked as a chronic pain specialist until I realised that I was happiest when doing DIY and art. So I took a course in product design and craft. Every project, whether it was designing furniture or sculptures I would end up wanting to capture a part of that design and turn it into jewellery. When I realised metalwork could combine and connect mixed media and turn it into jewellery I went down the jewellery and metalsmithing route.
Who are some of the artists you admire and why?
Francis Willemstijn is an art jeweller who uses materials that hold sentimental value and remind her of places. I admire the way she finds a way to capture traces of the past, memories and feelings, yet gives them a new life. I love her combination of wood and metal and the way she combines organic shapes and materials with geometric lines.
Giovani Corvaja, who draws titanium thinner than hair and spends months creating one piece of jewellery. Titanium is such a hard metal and he is one of very few people who has mastered drawing it so thin. His dedication is incredible and works to laboratory standards of precision, I think he’s a jeweller/scientist.
What is the tool you love the most?
A small hardwood mallet that an inventor in Portugal made and gave me as an early graduation present. It works really well for shaping metal without denting it and I love the fact it was a salvaged piece of firewood.
If you could have one tool, that you don’t have already, what would it be?
Maybe a laser or water-jet cutter that can cut through steel, that would give me more precision and free up my time to design more.
What do you listen to while you work?
Ooh, whatever gets me singing or moving- so either Motown and Disco or Afrohouse.
What is the significance of wearability in your work?
I have an affinity for materials as memory objects, and often take mementos of places, moments and interactions with people. The jewellery we wear witnesses our lives and becomes part of our stories, acting as a memento of people and special occasions, accumulating stories and helping us relay them and bring missing loved ones back to us. I love that this gives the materials we use for jewellery a new life, and as its worn, an ever-growing life-story.
How do you select your materials?
I’m inspired by industrial shapes and patterns and my materials are quite often found scraps, or left-overs. I hate things going to waste and find beauty in the small detail of wood grain, rust and patina. I am intrigued by the passing of time, material memory and the past lives of objects. Sometimes I don’t use the found materials, but instead draw inspiration from them and use metals I can oxidise.
Dream job?
Does it get any dreamier than making jewellery and making people happy when they wear it? Maybe just moving my workshop into a beautiful rural area and doing a mixture of making and teaching others the joys of metalsmithing and woodworking in artist workshop retreats.
What’s next for Maria Hammond?
Making more pieces! I can’t wait to expand this collection and have so many more ideas for others. I have an exhibition in a gallery next year and hope to find other competitions and galleries to exhibit in.
See more from Maria Hammond!
So Fresh + So Clean 2023 JURORS
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Jina Seo (b. South Korea) is Assistant Professor in Metal + Jewelry at Missouri State University. Her practice explores the relationships between body, clothing, sexuality, fetish, and space. She received her MFA in Metal at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her BFA in Metalwork and Jewelry Design at Kookmin University, Seoul.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including Munich Jewellery Week 2017; Brooklyn Metal Works, Brooklyn, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL; Sung-Gock Gallery, Seoul, Korea; and (AV17) Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania. She recently participated in an exhibition “Colorful Minds: Contemporary Enamel and Jewelry” in South Korea in 2022.
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As the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator of Jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Emily is an international presence in the jewelry field. At the MFA she oversees a collection that spans 6,000 years and includes more than 22,000 objects—highlights include ancient jewelry, a growing collection of nineteenth and twentieth-century high-style jewelry, and the Daphne Farago Collection of contemporary jewelry. At the MFA, Emily curated Past is Present: Revival Jewelry, co-curated Boston Made: Arts & Crafts Jewelry and Metalwork and Hollywood Glamour: Fashion & Jewelry from the Silver Screen.
Emily is a frequent lecturer and has been invited to present at museums, conferences, and organizations around the globe. The diversity of Emily’s interests in the field are evidenced in her publications and lecture topics, which range from nineteenth century jewelry to works by contemporary makers and designers.
In addition to her work as a curator, Emily has spent more than a decade as an adjunct professor at Boston-area colleges and for four years managed three robust undergraduate programs in fashion design and merchandising. Most recently, Emily developed a History of Jewelry course for the Art History Department at Massachusetts College of Arts & Design (MassArt).
A leader in the field, Emily served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Society of North American Goldsmiths from 2017 until 2020, and is currently the spokesperson of the jewelry vetting committee of all three of The European Fine Art Fairs (TEFAF).
Emily’s academic work has focused on the history of material culture and the philosophy of identity. She is particularly interested in the evolution of taste and her dissertation focused on the influence of the Hollywood red carpet. Emily holds a PhD in Humanities from Salve Regina University, Master of Arts in Fashion & Textile Studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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Chelsea Rowe (she/her) is an artist and jeweler originally from the Midwest. Currently based in Richmond, Virginia, she is a first year Craft/Material Studies Graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. Rowe completed her BFA in 2018 at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. She is a member of Ethical Metalsmiths. Participation includes Radical Jewelry Makeover: Artist Project and EM Student VCU Chapter Co-Chair.
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Yifei Kong is originally from Beijing, China. She is a metalsmith and enamelist. She received her BFA in Metal from SUNY New Paltz, NY. Currently a first year in the Craft/Material Studies MFA program in Virginia Commonwealth University.
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Shannon Kurzyniec (b.1984) is a candidate in the MFA program in the Department of Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond,VA. She received her BFA from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, concentrating in Metalsmithing. Utilizing body adornment, installation, and video, Kurzyniec explores new ways in which to express her opinions about the personal and social impacts of prescription medication on the human condition.