iykyk Bravo 6 by Molly Shulman

Jewelry

Copper, brass, silver, CZs, steel, powder coat, enamel

3.5 in x 2.5 in

Born in Frederick, MD and now living and teaching in Baltimore I have been a practicing metalsmith for almost ten years. More recently, I have been developing a line of work titled “iykykBravo.” This collection of highly fabricated pieces takes a closer look at Reality TV and the surprisingly relatable messiness behind it. As an instructor and community member at the Baltimore Jewelry Center, I am fortunate to be a forever student as well. A little over a year ago I took my first enamel class. It was a cloisonné enameled bowl class - which was a wild first experience in enameling. The class and process sparked a new obsession that I could now use to expand the way I think and feel about one of the most divisive television genres out there. I was a painting major before I took my first metalsmithing class. Following my introduction to working with metal I did a very hard pivot - leaving my two dimensional work completely behind as I entered the 3D world. However, the cloisonné process fed a part of my brain that I hadn’t even recognized as hungry. The breakable nature of working with glass adds to the fragility that lurks under the surface of reality tv. We grow accustomed to regulating our emotions and “rising above” to such an extent that it can feel strange or even uncomfortable to see people so freely expressing every larger than life, less than positive feeling they have. But when you’re watching reality tv, you can’t help but wonder what is actually real. Are those larger than life feelings yours or the producers, are the relationships your watching real or are they just a facade waiting o break? These works are meant to portray the real, raw, and unstable emotional reactions that I personally balk at in real life but love to see in the back alley at SUR - iykyk. A show like this highlights everything that is wrong (or in rare cases right) with a person, relationship, or situation. As jewelers we embody the socially acceptable urge to hide the cracks and polish over the blemishes. So to make work that highlights the breakdowns of human interactions can feel contradictory at times. I am a perfectionist. But as the maker of this work I am also the producer, and if the producers of shows like these have taught me anything it is that perfection is both fleeting and often boring.