Touching Base with Aaron Decker

AJF’s Younger Artist Award acknowledges promise, innovation, and individuality, advancing the careers of rising artists. The work of the winner and 4 finalists represents a gaggle of excellent items of up to date jewellery. As a finalist, Decker obtained an unrestricted money award of US$1,000 and exhibited his work in Platina’s sales space on the Messe throughout Munich’s jewellery week.

AJF requested this yr’s honorees to explain their backgrounds and share their ideas on the way forward for our discipline. That is the fourth of the interviews. Learn the one with winner Bryan Parnham right here. Our interview with Margo Csipö is right here. We spoke with Corrina Goutos right here. Keep tuned for our remaining interview subsequent month, after we’ll speak with Everett Hoffman.

The Younger Artist Award competitors was open to makers of wearable artwork age 35 and beneath who weren’t enrolled in an expert coaching program on the time. Judging was primarily based on originality, depth of idea, and high quality of expertise. This yr’s jurors had been 2022 AJF Artist Award winner Mallory Weston (from the US); collector and gallerist Atty Tantivit (Thailand); and maker Ted Noten (Netherlands).

AJF: Congratulations on being a finalist for the Younger Artist Award competitors, Aaron—that’s fairly an accomplishment! How did you turn into thinking about jewellery? And what conjures up your work?
Aaron Decker: Thanks! Being named a finalist amongst such a unprecedented group of makers was an honor. The collective vitality was humbling, and I felt privileged to be a part of such esteemed firm.

My curiosity in jewellery started after the passing of my grandfather, a clockmaker who spent his later years meticulously crafting in his workshop. Previous to that, he had devoted a lot of his life to working in a shoe manufacturing facility after WWII. Regardless of the frequent strikes that got here with being a army child, I cherished the time spent in his workshop, tinkering, breaking issues, and creating makeshift watches. It wasn’t till his passing that I thought of following in his footsteps. That’s when jewellery discovered its approach to me.

I started beneath the mentorship of Sharon Portelance and Jeffrey Clancy at Maine Faculty of Artwork, and continued by way of research with Iris Eichenberg at Cranbrook Academy of Artwork. Since then, jewellery has turn into my sole focus. By day, I’m a senior jewellery designer for a Detroit-based watch and way of life items firm; by evening, I delve into creating my very own items of artwork.

What does being a finalist imply for you? Do you assume it’s going to affect you going ahead?
Aaron Decker: Being acknowledged by the judging panel for this award is an amazing honor. I can not thank them sufficient. This recognition means a lot to me and can undoubtedly affect my observe. If I needed to spotlight one facet, it will be that this acknowledgment strengthens my resolve within the studio.

I dedicate appreciable time and make vital sacrifices for my observe. Many view my day job as a distraction from my studio work, and I usually obtain recommendation to focus solely on my artwork. Nevertheless, my job and the way in which I navigate life are all in assist of my studio observe. This recognition serves as an affirmation, permitting me to replicate and say, “You’ve acquired this, Aaron. Maintain going.”

Inform us concerning the work you utilized with.
Aaron Decker: My relationship with objects is sophisticated. I hate how they’ll make us, how they’ll let others make us.

As a queer one who grew up within the army, I’m fixated on how objects might make a person, [and] extra acutely on this work, how a boy could be formed by his toys. Think about a prince introduced with a bejeweled T-Rex. In his gilded room he performs with this monster [as it ruins small wooden houses and eats] townspeople. Its glass pores and skin glistens inexperienced as villagers are swallowed up in silver enamel splitting spines clear in half. The villagers’ muted screams echo…

Combining references to toys and Fabergé, I exploit enamel as a fabric embedded within the historical past of royal courts, monarchical traditions, and army recognition. My objective: to cite objects with a troubled previous. On this work I cope with a easy reality—that some [of the] objects we like so tremendously (royal jewels, gemstone-encrusted animals, enameled army medals) come from a time in historical past when violence equated to wealth. Even at the moment it nonetheless does. I camouflage in a plaything, a toy, a set of elements, a mirrored image of an individual, a prince, a boy.

Please choose one among the items you utilized with and inform us extra about it.
Aaron Decker: Funnily sufficient, is it one piece, or is it a gaggle of items? I nonetheless discover myself questioning this within the present work and in future tasks slated for Spring 2025.

Proper, as a result of Die! No! Bomb!, like a lot of your works, is a parure. The bone in its mouth comes aside to disclose a tiny screwdriver. Elements of the determine could be eliminated to put on as a bracelet and earrings, and its stomach—which opens—accommodates a sequence and a pendant.
Aaron Decker: Relating to my strategy moderately than the idea, every part is harking back to toys from the 90s or 2000s in its development, shapes, and transitions. Objects situate themselves in time, and toys aren’t any exception. This purposeful and aesthetic throughline serves as a type of timestamping and signifies that the work displays my experiences, or these of a child like me. I relish creating these toy-like items, fixing issues with the precision of a watchmaker or clocksmith whereas sustaining the playful spontaneity of a kid. The fabrication course of can usually be difficult, tedious, and even irritating, however that’s generally the place probably the most enjoyable lies.

AJF: What excites you concerning the artwork jewellery discipline?
Aaron Decker: All of it excites me. I like artists’ visions, their works, and them. Jewellery is so tied to the human existence. That’s why it presents such a wealthy context to interrogate and use. Being on this cohort reinvigorates that pleasure.

The place do you assume the sphere goes? What new and thrilling tendencies do you see in artwork jewellery?
Aaron Decker: I don’t like crystal balls, and I don’t like to think about the jewellery world as an remoted bubble, separate from the broader context of the world. The route this discipline is heading is much like that of the artwork world at massive. Tutorial applications are altering school, closing, or taking a hiatus. The collectors who established themselves as market movers from the Nineteen Eighties to the 2000s are slowing their tempo of assist and concentrating on inserting their collections and awarding new makers.

All that is taking place whereas know-how in jewelry-making steadily progresses, because it at all times has. I don’t know the place the sphere will probably be in 25, 10, and even 5 years, however the pattern I see now’s that of makers persevering, holding on, and discovering a path that works for them. That’s all you may ask for.

Any frustrations that you’ve got with the sphere or see inside it?
Aaron Decker: My solely frustration just isn’t having sufficient time for my work—a sentiment I imagine a lot of my friends share. I generally wonder if, even when I had extra time, it will be sufficient to perform every little thing

I need to do and create all of the issues that occupy my thoughts. In the end, I often conclude that having a restricted period of time retains me from freezing up. Nonetheless, I want I had extra time.

In case you might write a grasp plan in your observe, the place would you wish to be 5 years from now?
Aaron Decker: In my studio, having lunch with my youngsters, spending time with mates, and having fun with the problem and toil of constructing new work. I’d nonetheless be combating my interior demons by way of that work, and having fun with the cycle of frustration that making artwork brings.

Congratulations once more! Thanks for taking the time to inform us about you and your observe.

We welcome your feedback on our publishing, and can publish letters that have interaction with our articles in a considerate and well mannered method. Please submit letters to the editor electronically; achieve this right here. 

© 2024 Artwork Jewellery Discussion board. All rights reserved. Content material is probably not reproduced in entire or partly with out permission. For reprint permission, contact information (at) artjewelryforum (dot) org