Serendipity.
Fortuitous happenstance.
{A term apparently first coined by Horace Warpole,
the grandfather of Gothic literature}
My story begins on an uncommonly hot and sunny Spring day. I was ambling along the Tadcaster Road en route to delivering my Grand Depart creation for the York Open Studios launch exhibition. To my left was the huge expanse of grass that is the Knavesmire. In front of it is a sort of stray or chase- knarly old trees and uneven grassy ground striped with well trodden dirt paths. This glorious slice of nature gradually sags onto the pavement that signifies suburbian York- an uneasy rip tide of town and country where mud and leaf encroach on concrete. It was in this very dirt, dear reader, that I stumbled across a heart.
So far, so Snow White.
The heart- a modern, tacky affair of sterling silver inset with cubic zirconia, was perfectly preserved.
I knew at once that I'd use it in one of my creations.
As I walked I wondered whether it would be an idea to let serendipity take over completely for a day as guest designer. The challenge would be to use only materials sourced and stumbled upon on that one day, such as this necklace I'd bought that same morning from a charity shop.
On my return journey I headed into the parkland. I gathered wood and branches and seed heads.
The final edit?
A simple lichen covered branch, vividly lime and verdigris and chartreuse. I mounted this on chains from the necklace, adding a glowing orange jewel salvaged from my earlier purchase.
The piece feels slightly anarchic in its doomed delicacy.
The same sort of hedonistic excess as wearing an orchid to a ball - it starts to decay as soon as you put it on - a transfer, a transplant, of beauty. And to me, that is the opposite of todays throwaway costume jewellery culture, where fashion or cheap fabrication soon invalidate or outmode. With one, its the thrill of Cinderella's sartorial timebomb, the beauty being in the brevity, with the other the shine goes out not with a bang but a whimper.
