Auction #6: The Key to Valentines

November 6th, 2009

Shatterglass Datakey by Kendra TornheimShatterglass Datakey
by Kendra Tornheim

Wire wrapped antique key pendant, with vintage bronze enameled copper wire, pale blue glass chip beads marked with handwritten fragments of words, plus shell, gold tone safety pin, silver tone clapperless bell, silver plated brass feather charm, antiqued brass beetle, and clear glass teardrop. Pendant is slightly under 5″ long including the bail, and hangs from a 18.5″ fully-adjustable antique brass plated steel cable chain with antiqued brass lobster clasp. In addition to the pendant, the piece includes a half dozen extra word-marked glass chip beads.

Based On:
Valentines by Shira Lipkin

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

I have always loved old things, lost or serendipitously found objects, keys and doorways and passages. I earned degrees in computer science and medieval studies; both data and history are important to me. So is memory, and the nature of who we are.

I have dabbled in a host of media and crafts — stained glass, collage, songwriting, off-loom bead weaving — but have been captivated by wire work for the last two years. My main focus is wire wrapping antique keys, decorating them with watch gears, glass leaves, crystals and charms and other bits and pieces. My keys are often a fusion of stylized natural and mechanical forms, as if a bit of machinery were animated by a spirit of growth, and unfurled its own little leaves.

My pieces often have stories reaching backwards in time, through the past history and the associations of the objects I use. This piece reaches forward as well. I marked the glass chips wrapped onto the key with phrases written down by the narrator in Shira Lipkin’s story Valentines, but not all the chips were attached to the key. A handful remain lost, unmoored. These fragments are included with the auctioned pendant, but what is done with them is up to the recipient. Make them into matching earrings. Give them away. Hide them. Bury them. Continue the story of these shards of data.

Kendra Tornheim

Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey (Back) Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey Shatterglass Datakey

Story, Artist, Author: , ,
Filed under Auctions, Beaded, Interfictions 2, Jewelry, Necklaces | Comment (1)

One Response to “Auction #6: The Key to Valentines”

  1. Shira Lipkin on November 15, 2009 12:23 am

    I have always loved Kendra’s keys – what I love most about this one is the scatterable glass word-shards. Oh, I hope Ellen tells me what she did with them!

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A Taste Of Interfictions 2
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