Gain, Gather, Grow, Jaydan Moore’s installation at Ornamentum gallery in Hudson, is a provocative exhibit of found art—in this case silver-plated platters—that conveys ideas of memory, family, ritual, history and loss. Moore’s work is rich with subtle narratives that emerge from the fragments of the platters, each one connected physically and metaphorically to another. The pieces are a series of interconnected stories.
The work should not be a surprise to those who know Moore’s background. Jaydan was born into a family of fourth generation tombstone makers in California. Objects of memory were a constant theme in his. Moore was trained as metalsmith and worked for a time as a bench jeweler and machinist, all of which are apparent in the work.
Moore studied at the California College of the Arts, in Oakland and received his MFA and MA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jaydan was an artist in residence at Penland School of Crafts, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and a Fountainhead Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth Universities Craft/Material Studies Program. He has received grants through the American Craft Councils Emerging Voices Program, North Carolina Arts Fellowship, and the Peter S. Reed Foundation. He has shown in recent exhibitions at Design/Miami (FL), Basel (SWI), Cheongju Craft Biennale (South Korea), Museum of Craft and Design (CA), Racine Art Museum (WI), Fuller Craft Museum (MA), and the Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design (NC). He has also held teaching appointments at Rhode Island School of Design, Virginia Commonwealth University in the Craft Materials Studies Program, California College of the Arts, and Penland School of Crafts.
Audio Transcript
“My backstory is that my family is fourth generation tombstone family. I grew up seeing loved ones make accommodations for the people that had passed away. And seeing how one person then turns into a marker of the years they lived, a landscape of where they are now buried, and then kind of some little pieces of what was meaningful to them. I use silver plated platters and teapots as this kind of commemorative thing.
What I try to do is I try to make objects and sculptures that kind of try to take the whole history into view…collecting a whole bunch of them and making this one large platter to show the multiple different histories of different families using the same object. “
