Publications

Kate Stoddart profiles Adam Paxon, who makes one-off sculptural jewellery in plastic, covering his career development and impact of winning prizes like Jerwood Applied Arts Prize in 2007.

Introduction

Adam Paxon makes predominantly one-off sculptural jewellery in plastic, challenging and exploiting the material’s cultural and social connotations.

Early years

Paxon describes himself as “haptically governed”, partly influenced by a childhood of touch through making. He remembers competing with siblings for the use of tools and space, as well as watching his parents silversmithing. Their skilled approach, whether working on jewellery or on their house, and their choice to “escape from the rat race”, has left a mark.

His father created an environment where Paxon was happy to receive feedback on things he had made. Frustratingly for his son, he was sometimes away for the day, but on his return would give time to comment on what had been produced and why. Adam remembers a “distilled delivery of technical information: why tools are designed the way they are, the care they require”.

This early experience has made him both sympathetic and critical of students who lack a connection between “thought” and “hand”. For him, making “is a thinking activity, requiring sensitivity, agility and control of an idea”.

Training

This early experience of making was followed by graphics at school, where working in 2D was the only option. It was not until Paxon’s foundation course at Cumbria College of Art & Design in 1990-91, with its opportunity to ‘self diagnose’ that he realised how central making was to him. Tutors Jan Goodey and Bob Martin gave validity to the material-based arts and helped students to understand that it was important to express yourself, both verbally and through the materials.

He went to Middlesex University to do the BA course in jewellery in 1992, where tutor Pierre Degen, “a technical wizard in the workshop (gave) endless consideration of the detail of things”. Caroline Broadhead’s egalitarian approach, which he describes as “slow burn”, encouraged him to find his connection through the work, rather than reveal information in a more traditional teacher to pupil relationship. He recalls too tutor Julia Manheim for her astute and quiet confidence.

Technically more experienced than his peer group in his first year, Adam felt confident to experiment with new materials. Rejecting metal for no other reason than he felt he knew it, he made 3D forms in paper. Outside the college, it was those working in unorthodox materials who attracted his attention: for example sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle... ”she defined the material (of polyester)... ” He remembers asking jeweller Peter Chang how long it took to make his plastic pieces. His answer, “It takes as long as it takes”, stayed with Paxon, who says now: “the approach is about the work. On occasion people may have to wait.”

While at Middlesex, he worked with Martin Adams, the ‘Chelsea prop maker’ for three months. Paxon remembers the vitality of the workshop, the long days into nights, a driving work ethic, and the way in which the prop makers challenged the materials. “They would read the instructions, looking for (the chemical) make-up to see how it would react... occasionally things might spontaneously combust.” Latex moulding and high-end plastic technology were practised in this experimental working environment. It compounded Paxon’s desire to work more with laminated forms, to see the extent to which plastics could be formed, and laminated.

Starting out

After college, Paxon moved to Glasgow, where he worked from a studio in a cupboard for two years, as well as doing some teaching and odd jobs. Due to the recession, perhaps, sales and opportunities did not come immediately from his degree show. This gave him time to experiment with colour and form, and new work happened quite quickly.

He received a Setting Up Scheme grant from the Scottish Arts Council in 1998, and the next year was offered the first solo exhibition of his work at the Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh. He sold his first piece to a public collection from the show, to the National Museums of Scotland (Chambers Street Museum).

Prizes

In 2000, Paxon was short listed for the Jerwood Prize. It was the assumption of others that he would apply that encouraged him to enter. He feels “it is crucial to put yourself forward, to reveal oneself publicly”.

In 2002, he won the Hoffman prize, at the Schmuck exhibition, Germany, which has a higher international profile than the Jerwood. It has no money attached; the winner is awarded a trophy, an object made by Herman Jünger, former director of the acclaimed Munich jewellery course. In 2007, Paxon was joint winner of the Jerwood Prize for jewellery, with its associated exhibition tour to four venues over a period of a year.

He has reservations about defining the single impact of winning a prize like the Jerwood, or the Hoffman. He sees the profile and pressures as being one of many positive external influences, which challenge the maker’s sense of being ‘in control’.

“It really is as simple as this. It’s me and the work. Any third party: comment, criticism, support, (are) all listened to in the same way.“ The implication that a prize is a ‘third party’ means that Paxon utilises every opportunity to the same end – challenging himself through the work, to further challenge the material and explore new ideas and techniques. Taking part in a prize, or any big project is a risk, and he feels that “if risk does not exist, there cannot be success or gain.”

An inevitable aspect of a prize like the Jerwood, which he likens to a solo show, is the structures imposed on the creative process: from the deadlines for titles of work hardly complete, to the publicity, which has to herald work for which the rationale is not fully articulated in words. While frustrating, he sees this as part of the process of making work, and even claims a benefit. Although clearly it can exert immense pressure on the creative process, there is a conviction that it will help him move on creatively, in a way that may only be obvious at a later point. He feels he both needed, and used, the Jerwood Prize to make a significant body of new work. For him, the prize meant he could “re-centre himself in the work... to retain a license to be myself.”

He believes too, that meeting people and communicating is vital to the development of new work. The Hoffman prize led to further work, through contacts made at Shmuck, which he had attended two years previously. The purchase this year (2008) of a significant neckpiece from the Jerwood exhibition by the Chambers Street Museum, is as much testament to his profile at Glasgow as a teacher and his relationship with the Scottish Gallery, as the prize itself. He says it is the dialogue with individuals and galleries, which has value, putting it simply: “People work with people they know.”

Plastic value

Paxon has an early childhood memory of a piece of acrylic, which had an “interior world”. He says there are only two materials that have this quality: glass and plastic. Their similarities and contrasting cultural values obviously fascinate him, and feed into the work.

Plastic, for Paxon, is “the argumentative twin”, mimicking its partner, yet is the one onto which we load negative associations, environmentally, culturally and often aesthetically. His manipulation of plastic to appear glass-like counters the negative associations even before we can make them. By eliminating the tell tale signs: the seams, the opaque skin, by presenting works which have a subtle response to light, and colour change, we are not “awaiting the disappointment” of plastic. Instead the objects play with light, allowing it to pass through the form and throw colour through and even beyond it.

He derives satisfaction from the fact that plastic is a designed material, worth little, and is governed by its industrial context. Starting with a 35mm cast sheet, he uses a machine for rough cutting and removal of material. It is the laminating of plastic, and subsequent sculpting, that forms the technical basis of his work. He keeps the piece in the hand for most of the later stages of making, and believes this ‘eye to hand to object’ relationship is crucial to the finished piece. He also stresses the importance of the mark of the hand; although, for the first time viewer, it is the very ambiguity of the objects’ material and technique which is intriguing.

Since 2007, the work has less of a need to proclaim itself with flamboyant surface forms coming out at the viewer. Instead, it draws the eye of viewer into the object. There is a sense of less being added; instead, light and colour are borrowed from the environment. The clear and tinted interior world of the ring form turns the exterior world, including the viewer, upside down.

Links

www.adriansassoon.com

The writer

Kate Stoddart is a freelance curator specialising in the visual arts, with twenty years’ experience of exhibitions, events, interpretation and publications. She currently advises artists and organisations how to develop, as well as researching, writing, fundraising and running projects. She has worked in a commercial gallery, a museum, an arts centre, an auction house and an artist-led festival.

Recent projects include the development of a textiles collection, and solo exhibitions by Catherine Bertola and Philip Eglin at Nottingham Castle Museum, 2007 and Quiet Sound, Fermynwoods 2006.

Kate Stoddart

Kate Stoddart is a visual arts curator with 25 years experience of development and delivering the following in the public and private sector: exhibitions, public art, commissions, events, & publications. Her work includes advising & mentoring organisations and artists, as well as researching, writing & fund raising.

She is working for the National Trust, developing contemporary art, in partnership with Jane Greenfield, creative producer, to initiate and embed a two year contemporary art programme with three properties in the East Midlands region.

She received a Sparkplug (Crafts Council) Research  & Development award to develop a contemporary craft project in 2013.  She has worked with Designer Maker West Midlands as an artists mentor (Future Forward 1& 2) , and is an Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England 2010 - 2011.



www.nationaltrust.org.uk/trustnewart

First published: a-n.co.uk June 2008