MANIFESTO - In search of beauty

"...Alongside physical needs, with equal dignity,

human beings have spiritual needs that are embodied in

poetry,

beauty,

truth and

justice.

And they are sacred."Simone Weil.

BEAUTY.

BEAUTY, and dealing with BEAUTY, IS A POLITICAL ACT. 

IT IS A POLITICAL ACT because is a form of resistance.

It is the ETHICAL AND POLITICAL mission of our time. And in this sense, beauty and truth coincide.

Cultivating a SPIRITUALITY that gives primacy to beauty means exercising a practice of endurance.

It means not giving up ON IMPERFECTIONS, ON ERROR.

It therefore means remaining human.

Experiencing beauty means receiving a REVELATION which speaks to us of another, truer beauty.

Dostoevsky: "Beauty will save the world".

Dostoevsky wrote that beauty is not an incidental fact, a mere ornament.

"Beauty is the purpose towards which our world is directed. The universe tends towards beauty: it is its only tangible purpose. Beauty is the purpose of the cosmic affair."

HAPPINESS.

The American Declaration of Independence, 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all (...) are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...."

CAN A PIECE OF JEWELLERY MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY?

If the piece fulfils both the notion of FUNCTION and the notion of beauty, it should.

It also has to COMMUNICATE. If it communicates, it has to thrill. If the author, with her contribution, makes the receiver's feelings vibrate, that is happiness.

Jewellery carries a HIGH SYMBOLIC VALUE inherent in the very act of decorating the body.

Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself. That is happiness. Jewellery is a VEHICLE FOR SELF-DISCOVERY.

Art is a living and constant evolution of reality because the mystery of the infinite irradiation of an artistic creation rests on the recipients of it. It is an inexhaustible source of happiness, constantly renewed.

WONDER.

I live my life in a permanent state of wonder. I cultivate and guard an uninterrupted amazement at the immensity, unity, harmony and beauty of the world and the universe. Also in the face of horror.

Plato “wonder is what motivates philosophical reflection”.

A. Einstein. “The most beautiful and profound experience a man can have is to feel the SENSATION OF MYSTERY. It is the principle that underlies religion and every serious commitment to art and science.

(…) To feel that behind everything that can be grasped there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly, as a faint reflection, is religiosity. (…).

It is enough for me to marvel at these secrets and humbly attempt to grasp with my mind a mere image of the mighty structure of all that exists.”

Wonder is the key word for approaching the beauty of mystery.

Attention leads to wonder. Beauty fills life with wonder and thus makes it possible to overcome the meaninglessness, the absurdity, the nothingness that depresses the vital instinct in us.

The importance of wonder - the spirit opens up to what is going on around it and engages, moves, makes think. The senses are sharpened.

POLICY. THE BODY.

Calling things by a name questions them, problematises them, POLITISES THEM.

TO EXPRESS ONESELF ARTISTICALLY IS TO GIVE THINGS A NAME.

Cecilia Vicuña. “A poem only becomes poetry when its structure is made not of words but of forces”.

I am curious and reflect on the following political significance of the jewellery:

How does jewellery transform the person who adorns it, and consequently society?

Could it be, perhaps, the PSYCHOLOGICAL AND TRANSFORMING POWER JEWELS EXERT ON US that is the key to their lasting presence in human society?

Designed to ornament the body,

Jewellery gives the tools TO BUILD OWN IDENTITY.

Jewellery conveys the wearer's sense of self. It allows you to expose yourself, to hide yourself, to make a claim, to be part of something bigger than yourself, to stand out.

The jewellery is a quick way to hint at what choices a person can make before starting to tell one's story.

I believe that jewellery shows where a person stands within a society.

Yamamoto in the 90s sent a message: "We have a mind and a body of our own".

FEMINIZING MATTER.

In Kandinky's view, the CIRCLE is the field of the cosmic and spiritual world.

ENSO, Japanese word meaning "circle". It symbolises enlightenment, absolute strength, elegance, the Universe, and emptiness.

My jewellery embody circles, spheres, cylinders.

The rounded, curved and sinuous shapes are vigorous.

The shapes develop slowly, curving, enveloping, becoming more and more welcoming, accompanying the core of the piece and embracing it.

In my imaginary, the CIRCLE, the sphere, SYMBOLISES FEMINITY. It represents the female figure: They are energetic, not aggressive; firm, tough and delicate; emotional and explosive. They are quiet, tender and temperamental.

Its ROUNDNESS radiates active ENERGY. The electric charge passes through matter and ionises the air.

"When I asked Diankouno Dolo why the shape of Dogon buildings is round, he did not understand me;

I repeated the question and he replied: "They are not round, they are square buildings with loving shapes.

Man builds with his own hands; the hand of man is loving, it does not know the square shape;

after all, even wet clay is tender, loving: clay, therefore, and the hand of man can only create loving shapes. The hand cannot mould exact angles, and clay does not like exact angles either.

And rain is also loving. Rain falls, it likes to fall, it is a loving material that likes to follow loving shapes.

Man's hands are made to caress woman and clay and rain: that is right and good and beautiful. And why shouldn't he who caresses his wife also caress his house?"

Herman Haan, from: Byggekunst, issue 2, 1965.

THE EROTICA OF JEWELLERY.

Everything needs to be watched in order to exist.

People are mirrors for each other.

The person cannot exist as a monologue. There has to be a dialogue.

If eroticism is a place of encounter with the other, as an exploration of mutual distance, then jewellery is the vehicle par excellence for seduction. The jewel is the space of the intangible; its erotic charge derives from the fact that it is difficult to capture its essence.

Jewellery is the EROTIC RESONANCE OF APPEARANCE. And jewellery plays a decisive role in eroticizing our physiognomy, our person, our space, us...

A JEWEL IS AN ACTIVE PRESENCE, bursting into the human soul, as if it were a sounding board for their moods.

Jewellery is POWERFUL. Not for manifesting the shapes of the body, but for revealing the dimension of sensuality - the mystery of discovery that underlies pleasure.

I call it jewel if it can seduce.