Yesterday, I felt pretty good about my status as an ecoist: I rescued a bag of styrofoam from the office trash, and I’m currently shredding the styrofoam to use in a new batch of art beads. It’s amazing how smug and self-satisfied I can feel about some of my environmental decisions and how guilt-ridden I can feel about other decisions. For example, like Seattle’s famous Bus Chick, I live a car-free lifestyle. For nearly seven years I have been a member of the Global Car-free Movement, and yes, I feel pretty proud of myself. At the same time I acknowledge that living in a city with an excellent transit system makes all the difference. Still, there have been times (when I’m tired and just want to get home NOW, or during cold and flu season when strangers cough or sneeze near me, or when someone forgets to take care of their personal hygiene) that I threaten to not only buy a car, but to buy a big, gas-guzzling SUV, but then the moment passes and I remain car-free.
I fell into the car-free lifestyle accidentally. Seven years ago, I drove my baby Benz across country to
relocate to the Puget Sound area. Shortly after arriving, my car had a nervous breakdown of sorts and went on to that great Mercedes dealership in the sky. I had to decide whether to replace the car or repurpose the money. Since I was in college at the time, and since there was a bus stop right outside my apartment, the decision was easy. Then, while working at a radio station, I interviewed a transit manager about their move to biodiesel. Everything changed for me when I learned about alternative fuels and how my decisions impact the planet.
They say when you know better you do better, and so I try to be mindful of my environmental decisions—especially in the art studio. I use a lot of recycled, found, and reclaimed materials in my work but one thing I’ve been struggling with is whether to use precious metals and gems. On the one hand, it’s a no-brainer because in general the public places a higher value on jewelry made with precious metals and gemstones. On the other hand, the whole purpose of being an art jeweler—at least for me—is to explore the meaning and methods of jewelry making. Part of an artist’s responsibility to herself and to society is to ask questions like, why do humans value objects made of gold over objects made of paper? And, what is the cultural history of gold and how does that cultural history inform current perceptions of the value and status of gold objects?
Questions like these led me to Contemporary Japanese Jewelry by Simon Fraser and Toyojiro Hida. In the book, Fraser and Hida detail the work of art jewelers who use common materials like paper and textile to make beautiful and atypical objects of adornment. My resistance to precious metals and gemstones is also informed by the cultural values of affluence and acquisition that reached a peak in the last half of the 20th century and was played out on Wall Street and in the bling aesthetics of popular culture. But the fact remains that all over the world, people desire precious metals and gemstones, in part, because they’re simply beautiful.
Acknowledging the tension between the social valuation of precious metals and gemstones and the environmental impact of my choices just made me sit firmly on the fence until last night. Last night I watched ABC’s Nightline segment on Cerro Rico, a mine in Bolivia. The segment detailed the dangers to teens and young men in Bolivia’s mining industry, and it broke my heart. I decided right then that no matter what it cost me as a jeweler (lost opportunities, lost revenue, lost status, etc.) I would do my very best to ensure that my art practice establishes and operates under ethical jewelry practices. I have a lot to learn, a lot of changes to make, and a whole new world of opportunities.
