Berkeley Brown reflects on the jewellery she creates on the occasion of her first solo exhibition in Halifax, titled “Whisked Away.”

The value of food in our society is fascinating; I am intrigued by the way our relationship to it allows food to transcend its practical role as nourishment, becoming passion, desire, comfort, metaphor, art, chore, social interaction, delight, tradition, or profession. My interest in these issues has led me to make jewellery that comments on them, creating pieces to adorn ourselves in our passions for cooking and food.

Using the aesthetics of cooking utensils, abstracting their function and form, I strive to explore our relationship to food in daily life. I use utensils as a means of evoking our interactions with food because they are connected with tradition and culture. We relate to food through the utensils we use to make food and eat food; for example, the specialized equipment that we rely on to make a cake, from whisk to egg beaters and whether we like to eat the cake with a fork or a spoon. These objects’ beauty of design and function inform my work.

Primarily, my inspiration lies in philosophical and humorous writings on food and cooking which reflect the passion of the writer and carry food into all areas of life. The pleasure and comfort of baking or eating that is reflected in these writings, is the feeling I hope to bring to the wearer of my jewellery.

While exploring food utensils through jewellery, I encourage personal response and interaction: Paper and text are employed to reference the passion surrounding food as expressed in food writing and moving parts allow the wearer to interact with the pieces. My jewellery is informed by the mechanics of utensils, though I leave the practicalities of the original utensil behind, instead creating functional jewellery. Connections, movement, clean lines and repeating forms are all brought into my work.
My jewellery reflects an investigation of our passion, relationship and the rituals we create around food while integrating my love of technical precision and movement in jewellery.