About Shauna Mayben Swanson

Artist statement

Intimate connections to objects

We are surrounded by things, they affect our emotions and impact our thoughts.

The love of jewellery has been entrenched in the human heart for hundreds and thousands of years. Few branches of the decorative arts have such diverse and complex uses or, indeed, such a long history:

There can be little doubt that the first tokens of human affection were of a similar nature and were worn as treasured souvenirs.

Jewellery is often valued as an object that contains sentimental qualities. As we know, sentimentality is often associated with romantic and nostalgic feelings. To be sentimental towards an object usually indicates emotional involvement not necessarily related to the monetary value of the item. To pin sentimentality down to one specific emotion, object or event is rarely possible. Rather, it is a conglomerate of feelings and emotions, memories of events, culture and symbolism.

Ideas of intimacy and emotional interaction with objects we collect and identify with occur frequently throughout my craft in the form of lockets, birdcages and symbolic references to love letters.

The lockets and birdcages I create are capable of holding the precious things people collect and hold important, enabling them to keep their cherished object close to the body.

The Locket series represents a small recipe book, containing personal recipes, thoughts and reflections. Like Jewellery and other precious objects, recipes are usually passed down from generation to generation and are valued as part of ones family history and traditions.

Love letters is a series of work depicting the emotional importance of treasured letters exchanged between lovers and loved ones. Each letter is taken from the page and formed into three-dimensional handwriting that cannot be read but can be touched, worn and kept close to the heart. Here I have designed a range of jewellery that reflects the beauty of hand writing, its secrets and messages between the lines.

Heirlooms, keepsakes, faded photographs, souvenirs from past vacations, mementos from old friends, legacies from lost loved ones. These objects not only connect us to our personal histories but also give a sense of self.

I have incorporated traditional techniques and use precious and non-precious materials. I endeavor to create intimate objects that not only last one lifetime but many.

Artist's CV (Word doc 35kb)