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COLLECT: Jewellery by Pauline Bern “Last year I undertook the task of clearing my childhood family home, redeploying and retrieving memorabilia, treasure and potentially useful stuff. Amongst the many carloads was a large carton containing used postage stamps collected over five decades by my Grandmother and Mother. Soaked in water overnight, the stamps were slipped off the envelope remnant, set to dry on trays, then sorted into recycled brown envelopes, labelled and the count tally recorded, up to 100. Many were passed on to charities for fundraising but for some mystifying reason this large box remains, now occupying space in my spare room, awaiting a decision on its fate. That is the serendipitous story behind Collect, thirteen brooches that include fragments of images from the native flora stamp series, stamps that have travelled some distance within New Zealand, some time in the 60s, arriving at an address in either Howick or Devonport. Formally and conceptually these works continue the themes of Gather, Sort, Scatter 2007 and Glean shown in Fingers, Auckland, in May this year : reconsidering and reconfiguring materials that have a former usage and meaning and shifting them into the jewellery genre. They now gather a new story in the intimate context of the individual wearer and may act as a subtle mnemonic for both the wearer and observer”. Pauline Bern, 2009 PAULINE BERN Pauline Bern began her career as a jeweller in the United States in the 1970’s. On her return to New Zealand she exhibited work with Fingers in Auckland and has participated in many of the founding jewellery projects and groups in New Zealand including Details Jewellery Group and The Persuasive Object Craft Conference. Bern has taken part in a number of group exhibitions such as Paua Dreams at Fingers, Close to Home at Snowhite Gallery and Handycrafts at Te Tuhi – The Mark. Recent projects have included Scrub, Grate, Whisk, which toured New Zealand, The Ring Project at The NEW Dowse in Lower Hutt and The Multitude, in Christchurch, July 09. Bern is a senior tutor at Unitec NZ in Auckland. This is Pauline's first exhibition at Inform. |
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