Grace Minturn
Everyday Items
Everyday Items
Today is the era of faster mindsets and immediate satisfaction. We often forget that fine craftsmanship demands time and that the end result is worth the wait, with each step taking as much care as the one before. No step is too small as it always leads to something, no matter how small or plain the finished piece might appear.
My collection ‘Everyday Items’, focuses on commodity fetishism and consumerism which are prominent within both art and high street markets. In creating a paradox of visual forms through unorthodox and unsuspecting mediums, I aim to play on the contradicting value of desirability within everyday items. This project works with desirable materials, such as precious metals, that commonly understood to have cultural value. Accordingly, functional objects become inscribed with strong values due to their material nature. ‘Everyday Items’ reflects on consumer experience, as well as the connections people can form with objects and their interpreted and mediated value. There is a focus on the material's functional and physical value, along with the user and their experiences and relationships with their individual belongings.
As a collection ‘Everyday Items’ takes everyday expendable items that are usually taken for granted and recreates them in a ‘valuable’ material, thus retiring them from their former functionality. This process emphasizes the importance of the quotidian, which is often overlooked in a common first world lifestyles. These simulated objects not only hold the monetary value of the material they are produced in, but also propose the value that functional objects hold within modern day routines.
