Leonie Westbrook

Before making a piece, I create cardboard models. Noticing that these change over time, I let this inform my making while working the metal. The idea and object develop simultaneously, like an ongoing conversation between the 2 materials.

As time passes the model relaxes into softer shapes and curves, stretching downwards if hung, or gently sagging if placed on my bench for a while. 
I felt obliged to ‘reply’ by gently manipulating the metal to reflect the changing model because its only reason for existence was to direct my making.

Yellow Rectangle Pendant (image 3) is based on the model for Yellow Rectangle (bangle, image 2) which has been hanging in my studio since 2016.

Gravity combined with the nature of the cardboard had caused the model to change its form beyond its original functionality of a bangle. It seemed appropriate to repurpose this form into a pendant, which hangs, reflecting its two-year conversion.

Template is an ongoing series, the pieces pictured here part of a larger group of work exhibited in 2018 at Zu Design for From this point.

All individual pieces are based on a ring template I made in 2012, One small idea. A simple, efficient, and aesthetically pleasing design, I wondered if varying the result using the same template would produce another result as satisfying.

In & Out , and Reworked (image 1) both began with the same template and pattern, but with one difference - the metal thickness. Once constructed the thinner metal was inadequate, so I worked the metal, bending and squashing with my fingers and pliers, until I felt the new structure matched the strength of its sister piece.

All pieces are made from Monel400, which I roll to the appropriate thickness, before drilling and saw piercing following a hand drawn template and specific repetitive pattern. When each shape is folded out, it is representative of the parent, while gradually diminishing in size, remaining connected to each previous and following folded out shape.

I have noticed that it is not unusual for makers to use craft in its various forms as a kind of stress relief or escapism.

I am no different, and during challenging times have noticed a particular desire to use up my many left over and reject bits from previous projects.

These earrings are made of mostly left over wire and rejects from earring findings, and also monel chain links.

There is something very satisfying and calming about gathering and sorting so many individual components, followed by the almost meditative use of systematic, repetitive processes that are more labour and time intensive than they probably need to be.

These Bangles are all based on Fold Out Bangle (5 sided), versions of which I have been making since 2012.

For this series I have progressively removed one ‘fold out’ section with each bangle, each resulting bangle reducing in parts, until becoming the much simpler forms seen in the U and Split bangles.

Altered broken ceramic crockery, 2017. Artist photos.

I wanted to reconnect an ownership to the things we discard.

‘Beach treasure’ comes from broken and discarded objects that have become desirable after being processed by the elements.

Recreating a similar process in the workshop that beach treasure undergoes, my broken crockery is transformed, and by displaying the fragments together, the original object is recognisable.

I see a hopefulness in this, that we can innately see ordinary trash as something potentially precious.

Hotel toiletries plastics (lids, tubes, end of tube offcuts), hand dyed nylon thread and Perspex.

Artist photos.

Hotel toiletries kept as a holiday memento. Re-working these into pieces I understood why plastic has become so overused and disposable. Versatile, durable, readily available and cheap (free if rubbish), a remarkable material.

After processing in a similar manner to my ‘beach treasure’ crockery (Beyond Repair) which takes many hours, the plastics often still retained the smell of the original contents, a reminder of its original use.

Monel400 is a nickel-copper alloy that has superior strength and corrosion resistance properties. It is considered a puritan alloy as it occurs naturally in this form. While I had trained as a jeweller and metalsmith in precious metals, when I first tried using monel, I found it could be used in similar ways to silver, although it is much, much harder to work.

I became intrigued with this industrial metal, and spent several years figuring out what I could do with it, especially how far I could push the material using repetitive hardworking processes, while still retaining strength and wearability.

In 2012 I was awarded a grant from Arts SA for research and development of new metal work, these are some of the works resulting from this.