Come Eat With Us March 13 2015

As part of the Crafting Sustainability conference happening this weekend, OCAD University is putting on the exhibition, Come Eat with Us, and invited alumni to submit work for the show. The exhibition will be in The Great Hall at OCADU from March 14th to 20th. The opening with take place on March 14th, from 4:00-6:00pm.

The show is all about sustainability in relationship to craft and food production and consumption. Here is our entry. We can't wait to see it on display with the rest of the exhibition, and all the different takes everyone has on this concept.

Family Dinner

Swivel photo locket: sterling silver, liver of sulphur, photo

In an era where sustainability has become a buzz word, it's easy to overlook that sustainability is a concept that applies equally to relationships. From breaking bread with strangers to lunch and coffee meetings, to family dinners, food is an integral part of establishing, maintaining and strengthening our relationships with each other. The people we eat with are a big part of how we experience food. But people in North America are increasingly eating out or on the run. The traditional family dinner is a ritual that many people associate with a simpler time.

This locket, including a photo of our family eating dinner together, is about maintaining relationships with people who are important to us through the ritual of eating together. Although lockets, like the traditional family dinner, also originated from times past, this locket shows that it can be modernized and made just as relevant today as it always was.

Brief History of the Locket August 10 2012

Lockets--jewellery pieces with a compartment to contain small keepsakes--have been around for centuries. They are a fascinating item with a somewhat eerie history. Traditionally, necklace and ring lockets were used to contain medicine or herbs, good luck charms, precious mementos and sometimes even poison. Locket necklaces were symbols of mourning and remembrance, often containing locks of hair or ashes of lost loved ones. The lockets of today no longer have such morbid contents--most often, it's a photograph or two hiding behind that hinged door.

Many people enjoy the searching for antique lockets and all the history that comes with them. There's something about these necklaces that entices our natural curiosity pertaining to the story or secret inside that decorative container--what was kept inside? Who did it belong to? Why it was given?

To create your own story, you can also find many modern versions of the locket necklace. At Slashpile Designs, we've been having a lot of fun making photo lockets these days (you may have noticed our Brass Swivel Locket and our Moon Locket!). We have also been making custom, one-of-a-kind photo lockets, personalized with inscriptions, initials or pierced details. If you're looking for a perfectly personal gift, a locket is about as personal as it gets!