Cathryn Jasterzbski

We are characterised by the assets that comprise our identity. I am a female contemporary jeweller from a working-class family, specialised in skilled manual labour and currently existing within the world of academia. As such, I walk the line between class structures and gender roles and reflect on how I shift between them. My work redefines the value of the working class through a confluence of materials and techniques to bridge the gap between the two worlds that construct my identity – allowing me to coexist within both yet bound by neither. Integrating both masculine and feminine craft-based processes, my work combines normative expectations of gender and materiality. My materials and processes more commonly exist in industrial contexts such as auto mechanics and metal fabrication, creating pieces that can live on various bodies and span the structures of class and gender. I want to re- veal and elevate the labour behind things made by skilled tradespeople by creating amuletic badges that counter our societal and material expectations of jewellery.