A Word With Craig Arnold

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We’ve never really set out to meet someone through the internet but that’s precisely what happened in the event of our rendezvous with Craig Arnold. You see, we first heard about Craig in a magazine out of the United States called ReadyMade where they featured his camera lens cuff designs. From there we tracked him down to a website run outta Sydney by Jeni Oye and Jeni then revealed that he was from Adelaide! We caught up with Craig at his day job just off of Wakefield Street in the City.
 
 
When did you first pick up a camera?
My folks bought me a camera when I started high school. I didn’t play sport and I think they were worried I might turn in to a communist or something.

Who was your greatest influence in this realm?
Probably robert mapplethorpe- a guy who had a lot of different styles of work and liked to skate between the sublime and the subversive
 
When did you first decide to start destroying camera lenses?
I think my first lens was broken on a job- which I then pulled apart so it was a happy accident really.
 

 
Of course it’s not destroying. Do you get satisfaction from redirecting them in their inanimate journey?
Absolutely- I love finding new uses for things, and I love trying to figure out what else a thing could be... There’s an old photographer’s adage: don’t photograph a thing for what it is, photograph it for what it also is, which I think is also a good design philosophy.
 
Where did the idea come from to start making cuffs out of these old lenses?
I’ve always made my own jewellery (with varying success) and I started thinking about how little jewellery there is for men or that could be unisex. And of course being a photographer means I have a natural inclination towards gadgets.
 
Describe the process
I’m always shopping for old cameras and lenses so after I find some with interesting designs, I take them home and dismantle them, which can be quite simple or really fiddly depending on the design. Once it’s all in pieces I take the aperture, or focus ring, and cut, bend and polish it in to a cuff shape. Depending on the thickness of the metal and its hardness this can take between 1 and 3 hours. It’s a very manual process and you have to be quite patient as it’s easy to damage them if you rush it.
 

 
How do you sell them?
Until now I have only I sold them online at www.oyemodern.com under the name of re:vision. It’s a great site aimed at getting emerging designers exposure to new clients. Also next month I’ll be the artist of the month at Soda and Rhyme in North Adelaide who are going to feature new jewellers every month, which is a unique thing for Adelaide.   
 
There seems to be a strong message in these beautiful objects. One of an age that’s been left behind, a message of waste turned into want. What would you like your jewellery to say about the world?
I think initially I was just trying to find new uses for these well made objects that were being discarded just because something newer and easier to use came along.  But I think that it was also my reaction to the disposability and limited lifespan of so many things in our society, it just seems logical to re-task things rather than just throw it out- but I guess the trick is to do it in an original way. I think the downside of the digital age is that we are constantly being told to get the newest updated version of things but I don’t think that we should just discard the products or ideas of the past without doing some reflection on what’s being lost.
 
Why should people customise their own things?
I think many people like the idea of owning or making something unique and I think customisation is great fun - why stop at painting flames on the side of your panel van?