Fa'amele Etuale

Letters Home Series, 2019

Fa'amele Etuale completed a Bachelor in Creative Arts and an Advanced Diploma in Jewellery at Manukau Institute of Technology. As an artist, her passion stems from her formative nature as a painter. Throughout her studies, Fa'amele became fascinated with adornment. Contemporary Jewellery offered a medium to capture and archive memories through the object. Her process is indicated by pivotal moments in life, adornment has created a structure for her to encase, reflect and release emotion.

"The 'Letters Home Series' explores an object, the letterbox and the fence, how it is an object that is often overlooked, it's the connection to our homes and messages that people send us and is very important. This exploration looks at the shapes of the letterbox and also the significant point of difference of every letterbox from a different scale, shape and size and how I can personalize the letterbox. When we leave a house we take our identity and belongings with us, but the letterbox remains as part of the house of where we once were. I wanted to create miniature wearable pendant letterboxes with coconut husk from Samoa as my cord and pierced Samoan designs that are very significant to my practice and who I am as New Zealand born Samoan Contemporary Jeweller.

My work is based around who I am, where I come from and family, so a letterbox is an object that is the beginning of a new exploration of jewellery looking at adornment, memory, and sense of place. The 3D Construction of the letterbox is working from a flat drawing to manifesting it to an object this was on one the turning point of my learning in my final year at Manukau Institute of Technology coming from the design on paper to a new platform creating an object."

Pendant #1 Letter Box with pierced turtles and fence.
Riveted and soldered silver (oxidised), coconut husk cord made and sourced from Samoa.

Pendant #2 Letter Box with pierced fish and a fence grid.
Riveted and soldered silver (oxidised), coconut husk cord made and sourced from Samoa.

Pendant # 3 Letter Box with pierced design and copper bricks riveted on copper plate.
Silver and copper (oxidised) with coconut husk cord made and sourced from Samoa.

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