Throughout history, people have made or acquired vessels from which to sip their favourite beverage. In the contemporary domestic setting, households frequently accumulate multiples of the same type of object in numbers that are considerably greater than is necessary and practical for use alone. Of these many objects there are often individual pieces that have special significance for the owner or user. Some are so valued that they may even be removed and set aside because of their perceived importance. The research was initiated by a previous study of tea drinking vessels coupled with a desire, as an object maker and collector, to find out why people have special items that they designate as personally important. The aim was to identify how significance could be recognised in specific objects and whether the notion that a group of features used to gauge such objects could be conveyed into studio based work. The research outcomes are evidenced in a text-based document (which articulates the theoretical and empirical elements of the enquiry) and a body of creative studio work developed in response to aspects of the investigation. The document encompasses two components of the study. The first references material from the fields of museum and cultural studies, pivotal in focusing the enquiry. This contributed to the compilation of a general and speculative inventory of qualities that might pertain to objects deemed ???significant???. During these early investigations it became evident that a more in depth and contemporary analysis of significant drinking vessels, their owners and/or users was required. A Survey Questionnaire regarding personal use and special drinking vessels preceded a series of Interviews with a selected group of Australia curators, artists, academics and collectors who discussed and analysed their association with a personally significant drinking vessel. Subsequently, the content of these interviews became central to the focus of the research and outcomes. The research isolates a number of attributes that are commonly identified in objects that, whatever their condition, are deemed ???significant???. These describe the maker, usage, ownership, association and historical context. The perceived value or worth of the object for its owner, is recognised as a consequence of significance and declares the object as distinctive. This outcome is clearly validated by the interviews. The studio work develops from the fusion of personal narrative that has been enhanced by findings of the research. In particular, it references the cherished object, most especially those pieces that have been retained despite the ravages of time and use. The resulting work was exhibited as Trace Elements ??? Marking Time: Significance, the Vessel and the Domestic at Kudos Gallery, Paddington in April 2004.

Throughout history, people have made or acquired vessels from which to sip their favourite beverage. In the contemporary domestic setting, households frequently accumulate multiples of the same type of object in numbers that are considerably greater than is necessary and practical for use alone. Of these many objects there are often individual pieces that have special significance for the owner or user. Some are so valued that they may even be removed and set aside because of their perceived importance. The research was initiated by a previous study of tea drinking vessels coupled with a desire, as an object maker and collector, to find out why people have special items that they designate as personally important. The aim was to identify how significance could be recognised in specific objects and whether the notion that a group of features used to gauge such objects could be conveyed into studio based work. The research outcomes are evidenced in a text-based document (which articulates the theoretical and empirical elements of the enquiry) and a body of creative studio work developed in response to aspects of the investigation. The document encompasses two components of the study. The first references material from the fields of museum and cultural studies, pivotal in focusing the enquiry. This contributed to the compilation of a general and speculative inventory of qualities that might pertain to objects deemed ???significant???. During these early investigations it became evident that a more in depth and contemporary analysis of significant drinking vessels, their owners and/or users was required. A Survey Questionnaire regarding personal use and special drinking vessels preceded a series of Interviews with a selected group of Australia curators, artists, academics and collectors who discussed and analysed their association with a personally significant drinking vessel. Subsequently, the content of these interviews became central to the focus of the research and outcomes. The research isolates a number of attributes that are commonly identified in objects that, whatever their condition, are deemed ???significant???. These describe the maker, usage, ownership, association and historical context. The perceived value or worth of the object for its owner, is recognised as a consequence of significance and declares the object as distinctive. This outcome is clearly validated by the interviews. The studio work develops from the fusion of personal narrative that has been enhanced by findings of the research. In particular, it references the cherished object, most especially those pieces that have been retained despite the ravages of time and use. The resulting work was exhibited as Trace Elements ??? Marking Time: Significance, the Vessel and the Domestic at Kudos Gallery, Paddington in April 2004.

Ce travail se concentre sur l’étude des chandeliers en bronze, en cuivre et en laiton en Europe entre le XIIIe et le XVIIe siècle, entreprise dans une perspective interdisciplinaire. Abandonnés depuis la fin du XIXe siècle au champ méprisé des arts mineurs et populaires, les chandeliers n’ont depuis cette époque jamais véritablement été considérés comme une thématique de recherche à part entière. Le caractère anépigraphe de ces objets ordinaires et l’impossibilité de lier facilement les modèles produits à des espaces de productions spécifiques ont jusqu’ici cantonné les problématiques à des questions stylistiques et typologiques.L’objectif de cette étude se fonde sur un principe de déconstruction historiographique afin de dépasser l’approche traditionnellement adoptée qui enlise les recherches dans des considérations aporétiques. La recherche fait appel à plusieurs types de sources – écrites, archéologiques, iconographiques et analytiques - dont l’alliance vise la recontextualisation des chandeliers. Il s’agit de décrire et d’analyser l’itinéraire d’un type d’ustensile dans les sociétés médiévale et moderne dans les deux contextes, profane et religieux, dans lesquels ils ont été utilisés. C'est pourquoi l’historicisation des chandeliers se construit, dans le cadre de cette étude, sur leurs matérialités.La recherche s’intéresse ainsi à la reconstitution des chaînes opératoires de la production métallurgique, à la caractérisation des hommes qui travaillent le cuivre et ses alliages ainsi qu’à celle des matériaux, à la diffusion de l’objet à travers la société et aux usages, pratiques, culturels, symboliques ou dévotionnels, qui lui sont attachés. Les réflexions contribuent également à souligner que l’interrogation croisée des champs disciplinaires permet de comprendre en quoi la typologie des sources, en ce qu’elles concernent différents groupes sociaux, différents contextes, différents protagonistes et différentes réalités lexicales, influence la façon de percevoir ces objets / This work focuses, from an interdisciplinary perspective, on bronze, copper and brass candlesticks produced in Europe between the 13th and the 17th century. These objects have been neglected since the end of the 19th century and abandoned to the despised field of minor and popular arts. Since that time, they have never been considered as a real research topic. Since these ordinary objects are anepigraphic and because of the impossibility to attribute them to specific workshops, the research have been reduced to stylistic and typological issues.This study aims at overcoming the traditional approach that confines research into aporetic considerations. It mobilized several types of sources – written ones, archaeological ones, iconographic ones and analytical ones – to study candlesticks in context. They contributed to describe and analyze the life course of an ordinary utensil in medieval and modern societies in both secular and religious contexts. This is why the historicization of candlesticks is here built on materiality.This work focuses on metallurgical production, on copper alloys craftsmen, on the composition of alloys, on the diffusion of candlesticks in society and on practical, cultural, symbolic and devotional uses. The discussion also points out that this methodology helps to understand how the different types of sources, because they concern different social groups, different contexts, different protagonists and different lexical realities, influence how these objects were perceived

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