After The Fire

After the Fire is a piece I made in response to the terrible destruction caused by a recent fire at Silvermine Nature Reserve. 

I noticed that there was strange beauty in the devasted landscape  The blackened protea branches created a fringe like look on the horizon.  There were dramatic colours, black, grey, orange and gold;  harsh compared to the former soft greens and greys.   Lots of fluffy seeds resembling the tangled silk threads in my fabric stash lay scattered on the barren surface.

Inspired by these colours and textures I worked in an abstract way to create this necklace.

I mixed shweshwe, Balinese batik cotton and Tibetan hand printed cotton as the framework embellished with raw silk, fynbos eco printed silk and linen.  I chose the beads carefully so that they contributed to the meaning of the piece rather than simply decorating it.  The porcupine quills were from indigenous Namibian people as were the little wooden beads.  That the latter, decorated by burning, were particularly appropriate and the porcupine beads perfectly represented the wildlife of the area. 

The Ghanaian brass beads are made using the lost wax method.  I chose them because they captured the textures of some of the burnt plants and for their reflective quality.  I used the bone beads to give a sense of solidity of the rocks that had become so much more visible as well as representing the bleached colour of the sandy earth.

Finally I added a few little green touches, because within a few days of this horrific fire, if you looked very closely, tiny green shoots were starting to appear   

A small sign of hope.