Sketch book collage form my first HS4 presentation in 2017

Workbook sketches

Jennifer Laracy, Great Wave, Brooch, Silage bail wrap, steel, 2017

HANDSHAKE 4 was a great testing ground for artists. The masterclass and lectures became the bases for successful exhibitions at renowned venues. HS4 programme is the equivalent of a Masters’s programme that focuses on practical learning with professional outcomes like exhibiting and being capable as a practicing artist.
The combination package of mentoring and exhibition is unique to the contemporary craft-art world.

The project took advantage of online communication technologies that enable the mentees to develop and refine their practice alongside their mentors in a virtual studio space. A significant part of the project is the mentee’s process recording through the HS4 blogs, in which they present their ideas, demonstrate their research processes, design and making, self-reflections, struggles, and celebrations.

​READ MORE OF MY HS4 BLOG HERE

JENNIFER LARACY entry #1

I saw the Judy Darragh exhibition,  So You…. Made It retrospective at Te Papa on my 24th birthday. Anyone who saw that show will remember it I’m sure. The overblown kitsch oozed with a subversive undercurrent and totally overcame the space. The experience had a visceral and lasting effect on me, awarding new value to the craft materials I had been exploring in my own practice.
I think I claimed an ancestral right as a woman over wool and plastic paint right then and there.

There was always something creative going on in my home growing up, so have naturally been guided towards life as a maker of things.  I generate ideas through sketching sometimes in a sort of stream of consciousness, At times my ideas and thinking are working at a faster pace than I can physically make.  My work often has many layers of meaning and am influenced by words phases and poetry. I revisit and rework these workbook ideas, experimenting with various materials to evolve them from 2D to 3D.

Uninterrupted making time was rare and longed for when my kids were little but working in these short bursts has helped shape my practice leading me to make small groups of works I think of as still life.
Jewellery and art making for me are about figuring things out, a way of creating a bridge between the imagined and physical. I am interested in the interface between natural and manmade and the effect we make on our environment. This is reflected both in the materials I use and the themes I work with.

READ MORE OF MY HS4 BLOG HERE