Guest writer
Goldsmith Barbara Jardine has spent her working life—52 years and counting—almost completely alone. So it’s no wonder she wants as many people as possible to see a retrospective exhibition covering that long career.
The Alchemist: Celebrating the Art of Barbara Jardine opens next week at Stollmeyer’s Castle (Castle Killarney), Port-of-Spain, a setting that reflects the quirkiness and early 20th-century feel of much of her work.
Jardine makes not only jewellery, but objets d’art meant for display. Most of the exhibition consists of these pieces, such as calabashes carved or coated with resins, or perfume bottles with ornate caps incorporating tiny embellished sea-urchin shells.
Some “contain very little by way of precious metals or stones, and more calabash, resin or beetle shell,” Jardine explains. It’s their beauty, and her skill in combining surprising, idiosyncratic materials, that make them works of art.
In 2022, Jardine’s friend and mentor Mark Pereira of the 101 Art Gallery, who often showed her work, suggested another solo exhibition.
That inspired the retrospective. Pereira, who is much missed in the art world (Jardine dedicated the exhibition to him), was murdered a few days later.
Since then, making this retrospective happen has taken over two years of work by the organising team.
Jardine, born in 1951, grew up in South Trinidad. She studied jewellery at London’s Central School of Art and Design, then did a master’s degree in the Royal College of Art’s silversmithing and jewellery department. She completed the new three-year course in two years, and won a prize.
Then she flew home to Trinidad, on the wings of love, and has lived by her work ever since.
At that time, no one else here was making unique pieces of art jewellery. Luckily, her sister Helen Campbell ran a shop at Cascade’s Pelican Inn where she sold her work; otherwise: “I don’t know what I’d have done.”
Jardine describes several aspects of her work as a balance of various factors.
Two are commerce and creativity. She’s commissioned to make jewellery—rings, necklaces, earrings—“a huge responsibility: you have to make something the person will be thrilled by, take into account their personality and what they like”—while also meeting her own artistic standards. But she has to make her sculptural work at her own expense—and hope it will sell.
She must also balance creativity with self-discipline; the work can’t be hurried.
“A piece evolves as you do it. You can ‘see’ it finished—but it isn’t finished. The details are fiddly. But you’ve done the fun bit.”
Then there’s artistic balance: “You have to know when to stop: one last ‘dot’ (an inlaid circle of mother of pearl, gold wire, or a tiny cabochon jewel)—that dot can be essential…or will it be more than necessary?”
She has to adapt her techniques to work without certain equipment or techniques. She can’t do cloisonné enamel, for instance, in which glass is ground to powder, then poured into metal cells and heated until they fuse.
“The limitations force me to be inventive.”
Now there’s a resin that lets her use “wonderful” colours on organic objects and materials which couldn’t withstand the heat of liquid enamel.
So she’s excited to share in this exhibition her collection of decorative calabashes—carved, jewelled, capped, inlaid—using resins ranging from sultry blacks to sea blues.
Yet even now Jardine calls herself a “jack of all trades and master of none.” There are, she explains, “a lot of better craftsmen, but they’ve done the same thing all their lives…I’ve had to do them all.”
That is, she can’t work on only one aspect of a piece, such as casting, enamelling or polishing. She’s had no tutors, no YouTube videos, no studios offering facilities.
“Carving—I’m still learning to do that. I’m better (now) at the process.”
She began carving very early on, though, doing it so expertly in her ebony bracelet The Warrior, made for her degree show, that it was bought by London’s V&A Museum.
Nowadays, there are several prominent women jewellers, many influenced by Jardine. Among them is Rachel Ross, whose work in turn influenced Jardine: “It allowed me more creative freedom.” Their company, Alchemy, sold work by both of them until 2009.
Jardine also names Jasmine Thomas-Girvan, whose maverick miniature sculptures equally demonstrate a distinctive vision and technical wizardry.
There are few men in the field, but Jardine hopes men will visit the show, as it’s not all jewellery designed for women.
There will also be screenings of Mariel Brown’s 2008 documentary film about Jardine, The Solitary Alchemist; a replica of Jardine’s surprisingly rough-and-ready workshop, including tools and wooden workbench; and displays of the sketches from which her works begin.
Most of all, Jardine is excited that the art she’s made over so many years is being brought together on show in all its cumulative beauty and power.
The Alchemist: Celebrating the Art of Barbara Jardine runs at Stollmeyer’s Castle (Castle Killarney), Port-of-Spain, from November 19–December 22.
Judy Raymond is the author of the book Barbara Jardine: Goldsmith (Robert & Christopher Publishers, 2006). She is a former editor-in-chief of the Trinidad Guardian and Newsday.
