Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Dayton artist Jennifer Schock will have her handiwork on display at Dayton's Wenaha Gallery through Sept. 7.
Schock enjoys making hand-doodled, intricate cards with intricate designs and plenty of color.
A display of Schock's jewelry and cards.
Treasure hunting doesn't have to involve sunken Spanish galleons and buried chests of gold doubloons. Today, we encounter treasures in vintage stores, second-hand shops, yard sales – and people with an eye out for repurposing the past into art for the present get really excited about their finds.
"I collect all sorts of objects," says Jennifer Schock, a Dayton artist who creates both jewelry and hand-crafted cards using unique vintage elements.
"These collected things wait in the closet until I look at them and decide that today is the day that they begin morphing into something else – something useful, or maybe just for fun."
The magic happens at her work table – a scratched and nicked dining room table purchased by her parents at their marriage in 1945.
"Shelves surround me, holding jewelry tools, semi-precious stones, beads, sterling and other stuff I may decide to pick up and create with," Schock says. In a nearby closet are more tools, paper, copper, scraps, "junk" collected, all awaiting the day that they are chosen to become something.
What she makes, in addition to one of a kind jewelry and hand doodled cards of intricate design and colorful array, is a statement counteracting the impersonality of the modern world: its fascination with technology that threatens to eclipse its appreciation of humanity.
"We live in a text, email and social media world," Schock says. "Maybe my cards will bring a moment of laughter, joy, gratitude, healing tears, reflection to the recipient.
"It's cool to think that the person purchasing a card will write a note thus making a statement, with my card only the vehicle . . . love, sympathy, birthday, missing you, just a plain old fashioned thought to another human being."
If we're on the hunt for treasure, maybe that positive interaction with other human beings is the thing to be looking for . . .
Through September 7, Wenaha Gallery (219 E. Main, Dayton) is showcasing the nostalgic collage and doodled cards of Jennifer Schock, as well as her treasure-inspired jewelry. The gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
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