Marjorie Schick
Contemporary Jeweller
American.
Born 1941 Illinois.
In 1966 the young American artist Marjorie Schick stated her aesthetic intention. She wanted to startle viewers and if necessary disturb them but above all her jewellery had to be aggressive – it had to attract attention. In 2002 as a mature artist she confirmed that commitment, adding that she wanted her works to be bold. And they certainly are: both in scale and colour as well in their relentless outward drive into space.
For decades Marjorie Schick has been a pioneering avant-garde artist in jewellery. Her dynamic, energy-charged pieces rooted in the revolutionary late 1960s European concept of jewellery push at the conventional boundaries of form, material and colour. Taking the human body as her central theme, she creates and explores a wide variety of dramatic, theatrical forms, uniting graphic appearance and complex constructions. An important aspect of her work is the innovative use of base materials in a palette of rich colours – conceptual statements that are either worn on the body or are presented as autonomous objects.
Influenced by sculptors such as David Smith, Schick regards the body as ‘living sculpture’ and constructs additional pieces of sculpture from painted round wooden rods and other everyday materials including papier-mâché to adorn it – often in stunningly large sizes: a brooch that extends far across the wearer’s shoulder to enliven the surrounding space; a chain so large that it creates its own physical environment; a piece that – worn on the shoulder – envelops the wearer’s head, thus framing his or her face – or cutting it in half. In constructing her pieces so that we actually step into them, that is, do not merely look at them or hold them, Schick choreographs an enveloping ‘sensual embrace’. We usually remain outside sculpture and look at its forms. When we wear Schick’s works, sculpture has taken hold of us: wearing sculpture, we become performers in them.
Biography
Marjorie Schick's work is rooted in the European jewellery revolution of the 1960s when innovators, rejecting the traditional materials, techniques, and social meanings of Western jewellery, began to employ the entire human frame—not just a finger, neck, or wrist—as a point of artistic departure. Schick herself views the body as a "living sculpture," and, using painted wooden dowels and other ordinary materials, constructs additional sculptures with which to adorn it.
Since the body can support large objects—both physically and visually—Schick often fabricates works whose size is startling: a brooch that extends far beyond the wearer's shoulder, animating the surrounding space; a necklace so large it creates its own physical environment; a piece worn on the shoulders that encases the entire head, framing or bisecting the face. Although each construction is designed for placement on the body, her works nonetheless function as independent sculptural statements.
Marjorie Schick's jewellery is equally based on the traditions of twentieth-century abstract art—in particular, constructivism. So strong is the relationship with fine art, her sculptural pieces have been described as abstract art with its roots in jewellery. The artist writes: "there are four major aspects to my work: the constructed, three-dimensional form; the colour relationships; the definition of space; and the scale of the objects in relationship to the human figure." Her principle goal, she states, is to create a "visual tension" among the formal elements of her bright, skeletal constructions.
A powerful, tensile energy results from the dynamic manner in which she arranges bright colours, lines of different length, and sharp angles of intersection. Schick refers to these colourful linear constructions as "three-dimensional drawings to wear." Instead of marking lines and colours on a surface, she creates her three-dimensional "stick" drawings for spaces that exist at the boundaries of the head, torso, and limbs.
artist’s statement
"Wearing a large, three-dimensional, colored drawing was intended to challenge both the wearer and the viewer. I have tried to stretch the idea of function in jewelry and have manipulated space by extending a brooch many inches beyond the wearer's shoulder or making a necklace so large that it nearly became a portable environment. Aesthetic concerns are of paramount importance, yet at the same time the work was meant to question the traditional boundaries of jewelry and to introduce theater and drama to body ornamentation. Each piece created is studied on the human body throughout its development to examine its relationship in terms of scale and shape to the wearer. These objects have a dual purpose: they adorn and glorify the body, and they have an existence as sculpture when they are hung on a wall or displayed on a pedestal."
- Artist statement,Zero Karat, ed. Nancy Preu, (New York: American Craft Museum, 2002), 114.