Village Squire, 1979-12, Page 19As an assistant much of her work was involved in the
organizational work that an outsider at a theatre never sees. It
involves helping find and buy the fabrics needed to carry out the
costume designer's sketches. It means helping with the shoes,
boots and hats and making sure everything comes together to
work the way the designer had planned. After more than 20
years working as an assistant to designers she's done a lot of
painting of costumes, headdresses and specia! effects over the
years, things that have a big effect in the overall success of a
production but which people tend to overlook as they watch the
actors and listen to the music.
Along the way. however, her interest in jewellery found a
place inside and out of the theatre for her work. She dabbled a bit
in jewellery in the early 1960's she says, expressing her long
fascination with jewellery making. Then she was assigned to
make the jewellery for the Festival's production of Antony and
Cleopatra, her first real encounter with Egyptian jewellery. Since
then she's done quite a bit of jewellery making for the stage. As
wife of a stage manager it was a choice between two people
having careers and probably being apart much of the time or one
person subjugating her career to the other's. She chose to worry
most about her husband's career and so she went with him to
assignments in many places. Along the way she was involved in
plays on Broadway, in London's famous West End, at C.B.C.
and at the Shaw Festival.
Along the way her connection with Egyptian jewellery has
never been far away. A play she did jewellery for on Broadway
was a musical on an Egyptian theme called "In Someone else's
Sandals." About the most lasting thing about the play was her
jewellery.
It was about 1975 that she turned to jewellery makings as more
than a pastime. She started out at first working with copper and
brass but today concentrates wholely on brass. She will someday
also work with silver although she gets no real thrill about
working with the precious metal. It has no warmth she says, but
people are willing to pay much more for things made of silver so
it does open up greater avenues.
Brass is an alloy of copper and nickel which is relatively easy to
shape. Ms. Bohdanetzky works with brass in both sheet form and
rods. She shapes the metal with the use of a small hammer and a
baby anvil, using a small piece of thick felt insole to protect the
metal from the hammer. She designs the shape of the jewellery,
cuts the pieces from the sheet then shapes them on the anvil.
Most of her work with brass is with sheet metal whereas her
work with copper was mostly in wire where she concentrated on
geometric designs.
Today her work is most influenced by nature. She's
particularly influenced by water lilies. Some friends of hers_have
a cottage north of Kingston and she used to see the water lilies
while she was out in the canoe. Over the years the idea of the
water lilies was gradually metamorphasized into a whole line of
jewellery she now makes based on the water lilies. She also
works with shapes like grapes. In another theme she has what
she calls a dream series based on much more imaginary and
flowing lines, one called wind -dream, another balloon dream and
another still rain dream.
As she has worked harder at her craft she has received more
and more recognition. In 1975 she won second prize in the Sarnia
Art Gallery Craft South West group show. She has had her work
exhibited in Sarnia, Kitchener, Toronto and London as well as
Stratford.
In expanding her market she had been considering getting in
touch with the Art Gallery of Ontario for some time to see if they
would be interested in selling her work in the shop at the gallery
that sells jewellery. She had written a letter to the gallery asking
for an appointment to show her work when a dealer who handles
her work in Kingston wrote to her to say the man who would be
running a special sales area in connection with the Tut exhibition
was interested in getting some Egyptian -style jewellery to sell.
So before she made her trip to Toronto she made up some
Egyptian pieces to take along. After her meeting the woman who
runs the regular shop at the Gallery said she wanted the
Shop
at
Clinton's Newest
Gift Shop all
decorated for
Christmas
inside and
out!
CLINTON'S NEWEST
GIFT SHOP IN CLINTON'S
OLDEST HOUSE
A NEW UNIQUE GIFT HOUSE
FEATURING:
wicker, kitchen wares, English kitchen dishes,
cutlery, linens, crystal, teak, children's books,
calicoes for quilts and Christmas, towels, soaps,
and beautiful handmade items,
Christmas decorations,
and much more.
SPECIAL FEATURE:
Bulk spices -- a great saving!
The Board
and Batten
GIFTS
CLINTON
HANDICRAFTS
9 RATTENBURY ST.
402.3730
HOURS:
Mon. -Sat. 10-5:30
Friday till 9:00
December 1979, Village Squire 17