Caroline Gore site: interventions, observations, & simulations

“The exhibition is focused on a three-year period of work that locates differing ways of interacting with source material derived from sites. The outcomes of these investigations manifest in the jewel but often start with a photograph, capturing the momentary beauty of a space, or place. As a culture, we suffer when we do not see the beauty of what lies around us in the everyday. The overload of information and technology pulls us further and further away from being able to see our surroundings clearly. By simply highlighting what often goes unnoticed in environments, my work offers a solution to the single-focused attention of our dramatically busy lives. In my working practice, I used this concept in response to intentional blindness–the forces and attitudes that soften prevent us from seeing our everyday habitat. The site-specific interventions are a gift to those who happen to notice. From 2006-2008 I translated chosen environments into site-specific interventions, or I recorded momentary observations with my camera. After my travels, I returned to the studio to make a souvenir of the intervention or observation into jewelry that creates a dialogue between image and object. Not every space or place is right for this work, and it took a long time to completely settle on the correct environment or chose the right image. There had to be a pull, and it had to be right; this differentiates the interventions from simple graffiti or a form sourced by observation from a simple direct translation. In 2009, this way of working evolved into a simulation process where site information was pulled from both dreams and experiences that spanned divergent time periods. The site is now located within me as an amalgamation of memory instead of a tangible place or specific isolated moment. An indexical mark is made with the constructed site reference woven together by the installation of text, photographs, and objects. Simulations were originally exhibited in the Rose Netzorg & James Wilfrid Kerr Permanent Collection Gallery at Western Michigan University.”