Fran Allison

Fran Allison is a contemporary New Zealand jeweller. She is also a lecturer in jewellery at the Manukau Institute of Technology.
Her most recent jewellery, addresses ideas of re-formatting and past histories. Up close they draw the viewer to "reminisce of long summer days in the garden, of making daisy chains, and of times gone by".






The inspiration for her work comes from many areas, including a fascination with the connotations associated with found and/or discarded objects. She cites Julian Schnabel: 'I work with things left over from other things' as a source for this exploration:

On Collaboration and Collective...

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor [that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus... Or as Richard Loveless may put it - "Collaborations become great only when everyone in them is free to do his or her absolute best — and is committed to seeing other members do their best as well".

An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management - towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything that is relevant to the needs of the artist, this can range from purchasing bulk materials, sharing equipment, space or materials, through to following shared ideologies, aesthetic and political views or even living and working together as an extended family.
Sharing of ownership, risk, benefits, and status is implied, as opposed to other, more common business structures with an explicit hierarchy of ownership such as an association or a company.

Fran described how a collaboration raises questions about ‘ownership’ over the finished work - I can understand how this aspect of it could become an obstacle, especially when several proud artists come together and want the credit of the hard work they put in. Collaborative efforts also involve those who employ the skills of others, from disciplines outside of their own, to execute or improve an idea, Like in the collaboration work I talk about below - often friends helping out other friends because they have differing technical skills that are in need. Collaboration allows artists to be risky/experimental - they may not have the skills/idea's own their own. It seems a collective is a group of artists working beside, and being influenced by each other, and a collaboration is people using a collective intelligence and working together to produce a specific outcome.
A successful collaboration relies on equality among the artists involved, no one person’s role is more ‘important’ than any others.


Fran is a member of Weeds (a group of New Zealand artists involved in Object or Jewellery making). They were all collectively ‘pissed off’ by a 'Bone Stone and Shell' lecture which suggested these materials and this traditional style as being definitive of New Zealand jewellery practise. So...Fran got together with Andrea Daly, Shelley Norton and Lisa Walker, to change things.

Fran’s works are often made from found items or appropriated, domestic materials, such as handkerchiefs, doilies, pins, fabric etc. The objects made by all four artists involved in Weeds all have an aesthetic which is far from traditional ‘bone, stone and shell’ which they were rebelling against, it is more domestic and hand-made because of the ‘craft’ materials, symbols and techniques, such as crochet and assemblages. "My work at present consists of reformatted doilies, embroidered handkerchiefs, children's clothes and crockery. I like to use pre-existing objects in my work that come with an already established language. Then I like to mess with that reading in some way. The objects start off as decorative in one sense or in one environment and end up on the body as decorative jewellery pieces. A challenge for me is to reconfigure these 'found' fragments so that they still possess aspects of their original attractiveness" - says Fran.

“For me ‘Weeds’ is a platform for experimentation. Each ‘weed’ is different from the one before, and each could be cultivated into a body of work. Each piece is a new beginning, an exploration into new materials sourced from the domestic urban environment. The pieces explore the decorative possibilities of op shop discoveries, all containing previous histories and meanings. The added advantage of working in this way is that any discards become compost….”



Another example of Collabarative work is "Paula Cunniffe" - A NZ artist who did collaborative work with Nic Foster...It was a Six day residency at The Suter Te Aratoi O Whakatu – 1-6 June 2004, named "Art Practices revealed". The statement Nic made was "Making art about ones physical surroundings, the immediate culture and the artists emotional capacity or state of mind within those surroundings is the phenomena that needs to be unraveled when an exhibition is being presented." In this work we see two different creative people bringing different sets of skills together to create one idea.

http://www.masterworksgallery.com/index.cfm?action=artists&page=profile&artist_id=86

http://www.fingers.co.nz/exhibitors/Allison_weeds_05.htm

http://www.quoil.co.nz/artists/fran_allison/

http://www.form.co.nz/exhibition_landg.htm