Traces
I have long been conscious of my instinctual longing for the natural world; I am drawn to its mystery and inevitability, and to the sense of place it gives me.
Awareness of the increasing degradation of the earth and foreboding about the capacity of humanity to restore its health have embedded a layer of melancholy into this series. It made me consider the vital role nature plays in my enjoyment of life everyday.
After years of making pieces that did not involve the body, I chose to return to the smaller scale and traditional materials of jewelry for this work. The sense of intimacy and preciousness that jewelry imparts, as well as its long history of botanical imagery, seems central to this reflection on the natural world our children will inherit, a reflection on both pleasure and loss. These jewelry pieces are commemorative, celebrating the resilience and infinite variation of the natural world, and regretting the deepening shadow around it.
Helen Shirk grew up in Buffalo, New York and went to undergraduate school at Skidmore College, where she took her first jewelry course with Earl Pardon. Following graduation from Skidmore in 1963 she went to Denmark to study on a Fulbright Grant. In 1967 she returned to the States to do her MFA in jewelry and metalsmithing with Alma Eikerman at Indiana University in Bloomington. She taught at Indiana University from 1971-73 and after that at the Des Moines Art Center from 1973-75. In 1975 she accepted a position at San Diego State University where she is currently Professor of Art Emerita.
She has been the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1978 and 1988 and was made a Fellow of the American Crafts Council in 1999. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S. and abroad and included in many public collections, among them the Schmuckmuseum (Pforzheim), National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto), Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Mint Museum of Craft and Design, American Craft Museum, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, Carnegie Museum, and Oakland Museum.