While I am very careful to source my precious metals only from SCS® certified suppliers (SCS® stands for Supply Chain Sustainability; they are the global leader in the field of sustainability standards and third-party certification). Most of my precious metals suppliers are also members of the Responsible Jewellery Council. However, I want to point out that ‘recycling gold' is not what is commonly understood by the term.
True recycling avoids things ending up in landfills. Gold, of course, wouldn’t.
Instead, gold is simply melted, refined and repurposed.
Although SCS® certified refineries must maintain auditable records of their suppliers, there are loopholes globally which make it very easy for gold from unregulated and/or illegal sources to enter their supply chain.
This makes even 'certified recycled' gold untraceable.
I recently came across a most wonderful and mindbending piece of art: Hubert Duprat’s “The Wonderful Caddis Worm: Sculptural Work in Collaboration with Trichoptera”. I am excited to share this with you, as I am not only struck by the work’s beauty, but also by the larger implications and broader philosophical questions regarding behavior and intent. Having spend time being the ‘business woman’ of supporting my art by getting my work out there, it is now time to look inward, and to focus on research and new design development. New, fresh art comes out of deep inquiry, and that is exactly what Hubert Duprat has done with his amazing work. The timing of my stumbling across this work couldn’t be better.
Firstly, I take much inspiration from nature. Secondly, I am always interested in serendipity: in pushing metal, for example, giving it a direction to move in, and then letting go to a certain extend, seeing where it might go. Hubert Duprat has taken both ideas much further in this work, where he basically equips larvae in a controlled environment with nothing but precious metals to build their cases. The results are absolutely stunning, look:
Amazingly, this is what the larvae have built with the materials that were given to them
I will not overwhelm you with more details here, but highly encourage the curious to watch the following video clip: Artist Hubert Duprat discusses his work
Thinking outside the box is tremendously important in order to develop truly new work. This is what I admire so about Duprat’s work. Here is a sculptor who sometimes works very very large, and sometimes works with completely non-precious materials, yet he is not afraid to move to a tiny scale and to very precious materials. I greatly admire this ability to not be put in a box artistically. These are qualities in an artist which I strive to emulate: consistently good, consistently new, genuine inquiry, thinking outside any box, beautiful execution, not contrived.
pearls and gold
If you would like to know more, there is a wonderful article (English translation), based on a conversation between Hubert Duprat and art critic Christian Besson, in Leonardo online.
I love this work, the collaboration between artist and nature
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