Reid Peppard: Roadkill Cats & Dead Rats

I’ve been writing for Aesthetica for a while and have to come up with entries on a twice-monthly basis, so when the manfriend told me about Reid Peppard (one of his CSM contemporaries) I just had to get in touch!

Reid makes ethically sound taxidermy artworks and jewellery: producing uncanny pieces featuring real creatures under her own name, and intricate metal castings for her jewellery label, RP/Encore.

I was most interested in her work as she is not just a sheep, one of the fashionistas who cottoned onto this sort of morbid movement, but has actually been reworking little lifeless bodies for six years – with stuffed animals at university before learning the craft under a master taxidermist in Yorkshire.

Her work includes crow clutches, squirrel jaw bracelets, rabbit heart pendants and double rat headdresses (one of which you can see atop the head of Lady Gaga in her Bad Romance video, couldn’t resist the name-drop).

Reid has recently moved to LA, and moved on to a whole new menagerie of animals; my interview with the artist explores the motivation for her practice and plans for the future.

Gisele Ganne gems and bones….memento mori.

London-based Gisele Ganne isn’t in the business of wedding and engagement rings, christening bracelets and all that i-love-you-so-much-schnookums rubbish – nope, divorce rings and mourning jewellery are far more her style. Ganna cites “memento more” (or “remember your mortality” for those of us who didn’t study Latin) as her primary inspiration and her pieces salute the slighty more sombre chapters of life.

The macabre and especially taxidermy are everywhere at the moment, soon we will be sick of it, but for now I’m still  slightly captivated by these tiny bird skulls cast in gold – there’s something pleasing about preserving a beautiful part of nature which would otherwise just decay. A little grim possibly, but hey, memento mori…

Ganne’s divorce ring range (above) are apparently made for women to stick on their ring fingers after a bad break up to tell that ex that they don’t need them no more! Or possibly to stop that poor bare finger feeling quite so naked…

It’s an acquired taste, garish to some maybe but also quite fetishistic – that alluring mix of candy coloured flowers and cold, organic bones.

These divorce knuckledusters are not just cast from bird skulls, instead each ring actually contains a raven or magpie skull which has been electroformed or coated in gold. Although not commemorative to death itself, these knuckledusters and rings signify the death of a relationship, hence the morbid imagery.

As well as mourning jewellery, Ganne also makes other pieces with no instructive use however all of her pieces use taxidermy or the skeleton in some way. Seeing as I’m not entitled to a divorce ring (and not about to set up a shot-gun wedding) I think I’d settle for this necklace below – and it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “oh look at my crow’s feet!”

Apologies for the bad joke. It was irresistible.

Gisele Ganne is on the net and stocked in London by Beyond The Valley, Johnny Rocket and Guts For Garters.

Green fingers…

I’m terrible at keeping things alive; I own one plant and that’s only because it’s at my Mum’s house, being watered regularly. I try, I really do – once I grew a bonsai from a seed, from a seed I tell you! That was, until my cat decided to use it as a toilet. We gave that cat away…

Anyway. If my house was clad with a Patrick Blanc vertical garden then I couldn’t miss it, it would thrive! No weeding required either.

Add to this a Paula Hayes Terranium – they can’t be so difficult…? However they do slightly resemble fish bowls – I once had a traditional glass fish bowl, so beautiful that I didn’t want to ruin it with a pump, so fishy died. Buried him with the cat…

Actually, the one thing I have proudly kept alive is my cactus. It’s been in a plastic pot for about hrmmm six years. That’s quite impressive I think (ok so they don’t require water and I haven’t looked at it in years, but still..).

So I reckon I could definitely keep one of these alive, living necklaces on Etsy by Gemsprouts. I have developed a penchant for interesting pendants.

Take a bit of green with you wherever you go, goodness knows we need that in this drizzly city today.

Comfort Station… adorn yourself with artworks.

When I was looking at Hannah Zakari’s website a few days ago, I discovered a couple of pieces from another fantastic independent designer, Comfort Station. Set up by Fine Art graduate (see, Fine Art degrees are useful!) Amy Anderson, the company has been showing at London Fashion Week since 2003 and in 2004 set up its flagship store in London, just off Brick Lane.

The store is decorated with the token East London Taxidermy pieces, vintage suitcases and books, chandeliers and lengths of genuine ship rope. Honestly it’s worth visiting just to see the store itself, and if you can’t pop down there then have a peek at the virtual tour – stunning!

Comfort station sells limited edition hand-printed crockery as well as countless pieces of beautiful jewellery, all of which is handcrafted at their East London studio and – another responsible designer – without the use of any animal products, with use of only sustainable wood and every little bit manufactured within the UK.

My favourite pieces are these ‘sliced’ pieces: maps, music, poems are laser cut to fit silver or gold booklets which are ornately engraved on one side, and inscribed with the geographical co-ordinates for the Bahamas’ town of Love on the other.

They might come up a little pricey but every piece is unique, every paper coated for protection and all made of sterling silver or gold so you should be able to flick through these tiny artworks for years.

This silver barometer is another piece on my wishlist – it even features a movable pointer which you can set to suit your mood, letting everyone else know how excellent you’re feeling, or warding them off when things are stormy.

 

Finally, a couple from Amy Anderson’s wind-up Hybrid series and machine cog earrings, yes please! I’m only now realising the full extent of what was stolen when we were burgled on Boxing Day (sad but true) so maybe this is the perfect excuse to replenish my jewellery boxes with a couple of teeny tiny masterpieces, and support a fellow Fine Art graduate in the process.

Yay for British designers, goodbye to mass produced tat and hello to the hand made.

Hannah Zakari… the best from independent designers across the world all in one place.

I was googling something the other day and in the list of images up popped this very sweet poster – ok almost sickly sweet – but I love it. Turns out it’s from the Hannah Zakari website which has lots of bits an bobs, artworks and cards, jewellery and accessories which are all guaranteed to make you – or a very lucky recipient – smile.

The company’s run by Rachel Lamb (there is no Hannah Zakari I’m afraid) with just three other team members, and everything on the website is made by independent designers who are often fair trade, socially conscious, eco-friendly and all that malarkey which is nice – it makes you feel slightly less guilty about spending and does small businesses, undiscovered creatives and the world a little good too.

Here are a few of my favourites…however I’m currently suffering slightly due to the motto displayed on this first card…

These posters and cards are by environmentally friendly Edinburgh based printing press, Take The Proverbial

My favourite pieces of jewellery from the site: Vintage Belt Bangle by We Dream In Colour socially conscious fashion, Twig Hair Pins (WANT) by Woodland Belle handmade jewellery, and this Skull Ring is by Michelle Chang who’s a jeweller and Etsy seller.

Amsterdam is b-a-e-utiful and I’m after one of these ‘Dam Jewellery Stands to remind myself of the place our Interrailing began last summer, made by Polli a socially conscious Australian company.

Next up some very cute, and informative, cards by Laura George who’s another Etsy seller.

…and finally Howard Dreams of Custard Creams and Shirley by Kate Wilson.

“Shirley lived by the motto ‘the bigger the better’”.

Hannah Zakari: cheery things to brighten up your walls, your days and your gift bags.. x

Digbeth Day! Part II.

Next stop: The Bead Shop.

I refrained from shopping for myself any more but bought an obscene amount of beads to make prezzies for two friends of mine – retail therapy is fine if it’s for other people!

I made a little necklace, and a charm bracelet for my travelling buddy with every bead representing a little travelling story. This shop is amazing, some of their beads are almost exactly the same as the pendants that hang off some of those £28 Urban Outfitters necklaces but are a fraction of the price. Digbeth is not only arty and fun, but also perfect for a bargain hunter!

There’s also a great screenprinting place called Get a Grip, Sam and Kay who run it use beautiful old screenprinting machines to print up Tshirts, bags, cards, whichever piece you fancy with whatever design you bring them! They’re also really really friendly. Friendliness is like gold dust in a city as big as this.

 

Beautiful workshop!

We then restored our energy with a doorstop of a sandwich at Yumm before beginning our march around Digbeth to investigate the exhibitions from Trove, Eastside Projects and many more of Birmingham’s artist collectives which were open on this rainy October weekend as part of The Event.

Smoked salmon, cream cheese and rocket! MMM!

Berlin: Tacheles brings contemporary art to the derelict Kunst Haus! must-see!

Walking through one of the more ‘colourful’ districts of Berlin one evening, Scarlet and I discovered the old Kunsthaus and it doesn’t look as tame and oldy worldy as you’d expect. The artist group Tacheles have taken up and stamped (or rather, spray painted) their mark all over every inch of this six storey building and are now spilling onto the streets and any piece of waste land they can find.

There’s all sorts to be seen: amazing jewellery, illustration, painting, metal work, woodwork – you name it, you’ll find it! The artists are from all over Europe, I got chatting with the Dutch artist Tim Roeloffs and the Belarusian painter Alex Rodin; their work was completely different but both appealed to me in different ways – take a look!

Tacheles is a beautiful place, unconventional in every way but the warmth of the artists and the community they’ve built outshines the decrepit nature of the building. Yes it’s dingy and dark, yes the stench of urine is almost unbearable, yes it’s falling to pieces but as we worked our way up the treacherous spiral staircase to the top we grew to love it.

Alex Rodin’s work is in the top of the building and with my fear of heights it was looking like we weren’t going to get there but I’m so glad we did. He was the oldest of the artists we met and his space was a church-like gallery of huge canvases, lit from above through great sky lights. I wish I could have taken photos but on my teeny tiny budget I couldn’t even afford the one euro donation, the paintings are really out of this world though. Alex Rodin’s pieces actually impressed me far more than most of the work I’ve seen recently in London galleries, now that’s saying something!

On a very sad note…Tacheles is being forced out of its home. The council are demolishing the building as it is essentially a squat, a brilliant bohemian dream but a squat all the same.

We signed a petition to try to SAVE TACHELES and you can do the same here… http://super.tacheles.de/cms/

It’s one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen, no exaggeration, just because it’s a collective of 80 people from across the world who want and have managed to fight for the same thing and that’s simply a space to do the things they love to do.

So help them keep fighting!

p.s. I must apologise for the standard of most of these photos, I was overexcited and experiencing the after effects of vertigo for most.