no title (11), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
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Chantel Gushue is a visual artist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. Chantel's work includes jewellery, drawings and small sculpture installation inspired by the atomical structure of crystals. She has exhibited both regionally and internationally and has spoken on several panels as an advocate for Canadian jewellery and community building. She has been (elected) Co-Chair of Co-Adorn Art Jewellery Society since 2017.
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A studio workspace
no title (8)
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What Remains is a series of metal-based jewellery that focuses on crystal growth as a metaphor for an intense desire to reach an unattainable perfection, inevitability resulting in failure.
Through the union of two separate entities, bone and crystal, I reveal how similar chemical actions cause drastically different results. By growing my own crystals, I am able to create a polycrystalline structure forced to conform to a mould. I use this intentionally created crystal mass to illustrate the failure to achieve the desired large, beautiful single crystal ideal. |
No title (1), What Remains series, 2019. Nickel silver, silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
Fitting a crystal
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The process of ossification (bone formation) creates crystals of another kind. This body of work focuses on the cancelous bones which are found in the ends of a body’s long bones. These bones are developed by a spongy membrane that forms in a fibrous tissue in the body. Cartilage within this membrane begins to degenerate and calcify which in turn creates bone growth.
In both cases, the crystals grow from an amorphous solution of their essential matter. The crystals in my analogy develop from an attempt to create order from chaos. The crystal endeavors to control the amorphous substance to grown into a rigid, perfect, and inflexible form. |
A well cleaned bone
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no title (5), What Remains series, 2019. Nickel silver, silver, bovine bone, ammonium phosphate, polymer, colourant.
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no title (5), What Remains series, 2019. Nickel silver, silver, bovine bone, ammonium phosphate, polymer, colourant.
A detail of the lacy cancellous of a bovine thigh-bone
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no title (11), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (10), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, ammonium phosphate, polymer, colourant, steel.
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A mineral crystal growing in nature requires ideal, external conditions to allow it to reach its full potential as a form with sharp, easily recognised faces. Any change in those conditions results in a crystal that is malformed and full of deficiencies. Ideal conditions are rare and finding the necessary chemical elements present to produce precious gem crystals is uncommon. I grow the glittering crystals in my work. They are created by dissolving powder chemical constituents in boiling water. This amorphous substance cools, encouraging a chemical attraction to occur. Over time, a polycrystalline form develops. I grow the crystals into a mould, fully controlling their overall external shape.
The other material in this work is a crystal of another kind: bovine bone. I am working with the cancellous, a lacy part of bone often found in the ends of the long bones. These bones are developed by a spongy membrane that forms in a fibrous tissue within the body. Simultaneously, cartilage within this membrane begins to degenerate and calcify which in turn creates bone growth. The process of cartilage growth, degeneration, crystallization is ongoing. While the bones stop growing in length in early adulthood, they may continue to increase in diameter from stresses placed on the body. The cancellous builds in a three-dimensional latticework similar to the atomic structure of a gemmy crystal. |
no title (9), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
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no title (8), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, ammonium phosphate, polymer, colourant, steel
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no title (7), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, ammonium phosphate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (3), What Remains series, 2019. Nickel silver, silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (2), What Remains series, 2019. Nickel silver, silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (9), What Remains series. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
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Using a hacksaw to cut along the grain of a bovine thigh bone
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A sodium tetraborate crystal grown in a silicone-caulking mould
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no title (4), What Remains series, 2019. Nickel silver, silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (6), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (8), What Remains series. Silver, bovine bone, ammonium phosphate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (6), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
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I juxtapose these bones and home-grown gems to create a visual parallel between the actual and the desired. The pairs are mounted in metal to be worn as brooches. An adaptable symbol in contemporary jewellery, I employ the brooch as a symbol of inheritance. Drawing on its implications of pride, its physical position on the body highlights the boundary between concealment and exposure, the personal and the environment. Brooches commemorate and decorate; they are a badge of honour; a shield inviting inspection yet simultaneously marking a personal boundary.
In both the home-made crystals and the bone structure, the crystals grow from an amorphous solution of their essential matter as a specific set of circumstances creates a perfectionist. Amorphous substances are chaotic by nature because they do not have an orderly arrangement of atoms and therefore no definite external structure. Through a sustained period of ideal conditions, the crystal develops itself as a rigid, perfect, and inflexible form. It is the crystal’s singular mission to find and create order in chaos. Once it has achieved that control, the crystal continues to grow in perfection until an outside force stops it. The crystal does not stop growing by choice, its desire is to order the chaos surrounding it in perpetuity. The outside force causes the crystal to fail but allows the crystal to assign blame for its failure on something other than itself, softening the blow of its failure. |
Two bovine bones in the process of being cleaned
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A beautiful ammonium phosphate crystal
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no title (9), What Remains series. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
no title (10), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, ammonium phosphate, polymer, colourant, steel.
no title (12), What Remains series, 2020. Silver, bovine bone, sodium tetraborate, polymer, colourant, steel
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Scrap metal being cleaned for reuse
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A bovine bone mid-paint
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A final bench-top view