Crafting Art

Nora Fok’s exhibition “New Threads” is currently showing at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery and walking around these intricately woven pieces of wearable art I am in awe.

Nora Fok has an ability to craft her art, crossing boundaries that other artists don’t dare to cross; crossing that great divide between artisan and artist. I come from a crafting background and have had many frustrated hours trying to understand the difference between art and craft.

Nora Fok is one of the artists that have helped me to cross the chasm and bring light into the self-reflection that surfaces at 3am in the morning.

Undoubtedly, Nora Fok uses craft skills and creates pieces of jewellery that dance in the light and capture that ethereal quality that I am drawn to. Undoubtedly, Nora Fok creates pieces of wearable jewellery that perplexes the little grey cells and leaves you mystified at the complexity of her designs, but Nora Fok does more than that for me: she allows me to see my own art differently.

I can craft my art. I can use the skills I have learnt during my flower, felt, wood and wire phases of my life. I can take those skills and explore the links between the science of wellbeing, the emotions of wellbeing and the benefits of wellbeing; using the skills of the craft but presenting the art behind the concepts.

Nora Fok moves me to the very core of my being and invites me to see a new route through my own maze. My new equation looks more like it will result in an answer:

Neurons+River Systems+Art+Wellbeing =

                                                                          Copper+Fibre+Sculpture = Happiness