Venetia Dale recently opened the exhibition “Objects for Objects: Work by Venetia Dale” at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. The young artist also teaches metalsmithing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where surprisingly most of her students are female. Because metalsmithing provides the basic skills to jewelry making, many women students might be drawn to this art form. Yet, Dale's sculptures work towards a larger, human scale. Objects the sculptor recasts from cultural detritus discovered in rubbish bins. Dale spent a few moments at her exhibition opening to discuss the art of metalsmithing and how she expresses it through this exhibition.
What do you like about metalsmithing?
Historically, metalsmithing was a trade done by men. Metalsmiths were men, especially during the guilds [in the middle ages and afterwards]. As a modern art form, I have far more female students. Although in blacksmithing art, it remains a more male tradition. It's very labor intensive and physical work. Jewelry is the small scale form, I work large scale, and then teach large scale metalsmithing to the students, encourage them to think on a larger scale.
What did you do to get ready for this exhibition?
I had lots of help, as one of my arts professor's said, my objects are named "third generation." The actual plastic baskets (first), then the plastic casts, and then the pewter casting or finished artwork. People shared the work in sawing, piercing, grinding, welding and then using steel wool to get the sculptures ready for the exhibition. The shower caddies were also powder coated! I had white powder coating over everything, when I did that for this exhibition. Metalsmithing can be craft tradition that translates into fine art.
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A shower caddy and thrown away stuffed animals, the old beanie babies, are the secondary objects in the “Objects for Objects” exhibition. Could you speak to that theme?
I deal with objects people get rid of, and secondary objects [like shower caddies or beanie babies] are more disposable objects, especially beanie babies after the craze [to collect them]. They are easily discarded. These objects fluctuate in value. Once their social value decreases, then their market value decreases! So I recast them in pewter [note the pieces in the exhibition, Retain Tags for Reference or Found Tag, Pewter] and then we're seeing the object differently. So we have this fascinating transformation and restructuring, not just when an article or object is consumed but the moment of exchange when it becomes a primary object [art] and then their value increases again.
What objects will you be using in your future exhibitions?
I have plastic bags. I am working on a solo installation at the Soap Box Gallery in Brooklyn [New York]. It's a patched works of plastic bags, again, fragments of disposable things. I'm sewing them into a sphere to be tethered to a wall in the gallery. And then there's an exhibition in Montreal that features sculpture and installations, metalsmithing and jewelry.
To view Venetia Dale's artwork, visit her website: www.ventiadale.com or enjoy the Villa Terrace exhibit through this summer.
