My offering for this group show was 4 hourglass pendants. Each one considers a coping or defense mechanism we might use when facing climate anxiety.

Deflection (sterling silver, fine silver, fresh water pearls, glass, silk) features an hourglass hanging from a string of pearls with a mirrored interior. I was thinking about how the deflection of blame is a tool that upholds capitalism. The narrative that it's up to the individual to 'fix' climate change means corporations and governments can continue to make a profit off of large scale destruction and damage to the environment. The hourglass in this series becomes a symbol for time running out and a fragile container for the precarious and pressing issues we face.

Sacrifice (gold plated silver, motor oil, kauri gum, glass beads, silk, glass).

I planned this piece in beginning, around the idea that I would use amber beads. The beads used here belonged to my great grandmother and she had mistaken then for amber, so when my mother passed them down to me she too thought they were amber. But after testing them by burning (amber would melt) I concluded they must be glass. However I used them anyway because I think the idea of inheritance plays a role in climate change and the way people feel about it. Alternative title for this piece was "inheritance". Instead I ended up putting a piece of kauri gum inside the hour glass with the motor oil, and I'm glad I did because I hadn't expected the oil to resist flowing through the center of the glass! A tiny amount came through but on the whole it stays defying gravity in the top compartment. 𝘚𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦 is about climate change and ritual. Two materials caught inside the glass that are essentially two kinds of fossils. Amber has been used since the stone age and amber jewellery was often ritualistically placed with the dead. It was also used as a fuel! Motor oil is made with crude oil, also known as fossil fuel, the burning of which creates greenhouse gasses which contributes to global warming/climate change. In fact is the number 1 emmiter of GH gasses.

I find this piece to be the most complex out of the four pendants. Two fossil/fuels, valued by human kind. One, believed to be sweat drops from the sun, or tears from the gods, precious enough to place with loved ones passed on. The other creating profits beyond belief, for the few, but consumed so widely for convenience and comfort. Encased in a thin veil of gold, the facade of value, on a string of beads passed down from generation to generation. The question is, what are we sacrificing at the altar of capitalism?

Pendant number 3, Compartmentalization (sterling silver, onyx, water, ashes, glass, silk). The hour glass in this piece has two fully enclosed compartments, one containing water and one containing ashes. This piece considers the scale of climate change. I think in particular, 'natural' disasters. It's hard to watch the news and see reports of drought, fires, floods, tornados, cyclones. It's easier, if not necessary, to compartmentalize. These events feel beyond us, too large to fully look at.

There is also a reference to time scale. The amount of damage humans have inflicted on the planet has happened in the blink of an eye, when compared to earth's existence. Ashes could reference humans discovering fire thousands of years ago, while water in the future could become scarce. Again, something that feels beyond us, and our lifetime.

Misdirection (sterling silver, pounamu, sapphire, peridot, onyx, freshwater pearls, glass beads, crystal beads, sand, silk, glass) is the final pendant in the series. The gemstones on the surface of the hourglass distract from the sand inside. The sporadically beaded cord has beads from the other three pieces. I wanted to suggest a narrative amongst the works, that this 'defense mechanism' might be the most widely felt, a social phenomenon within our collective thinking around climate change. Distraction, procrastination, apathy even. With all the pieces I worked around a colour theme and while this one incorporates pieces of the others, over all it is green. When I was thinking about this piece I talked to a friend about the idea of using gemstones to obscure and distract from what was happening inside the hourglass. She said "like greenwashing" which immediately clicked for me, that this piece had to be green. I think misdirection is a political and corporate tool. Designed to make us look elsewhere or, in terms of greenwashing, alleviate guilt so we will consume a product or support a policy. It can be hard to identify, it's a shimmering veil beneath which is a scary and painful truth. Time is running out.