"For this year’s fall jewellery show I chose to make three pieces depicting creatures that often first catch the curiosity of a child. The kind of creatures that kids get fully absorbed in by their appearance and movement and then unconsciously, they start to lean in to get a closer look. Kids will inspect them, watch them and maybe even poke at them. Ultimately learning that these creature are fragile, wonderfully amazing and need to be respected if they want to keep them around. Oftentimes kids develop a liking for one creature in-particular. They learn about it, decorate their bedroom walls with pictures of it and can recite a multitude of facts about it. Somewhere along the way in our school systems and in our timeline of growing up, it becomes silly to care about such things. We stop leaning in for a closer look and reminding ourselves how amazing all of natures little creatures are. We get busy, stuck in a fog. This disconnection is something Ive been thinking a lot about lately in the past few years as our world has become more chaotic and unpredictable, leaving me searching for more ways to soothe a worried mind.

At the beginning of this summer, I took a weekend trip to Bowen Island (off the coast of BC) with a group of women I have known since I was fourteen. We are all forty now. On our trip we caught up on each others lives, shopped the cute shops and cooked food together. The moment that sticks out most in my memory from this trip is an hour or so we spent at a random, completely empty beach. Five, forty year-old women with careers, kids, partners, mortgages, aging parents and our own individual woes; yet on an empty beach, with none of the fore-mentioned distractions, all of our individual instincts was to bend down and start exploring; quietly observing every rock, shell and critter. The most exciting few minutes of this hour was a sudden group effort to save a lone loose starfish from getting bashed against the rocks by strong waves. At this beach, looking out at the Pacific Ocean, we had found a way back to the same uncluttered headspace as a child, simply by existing in nature and following our instincts. One could say I’m giving this moment more weight than it deserves but I disagree. I think it's imperative to remind ourselves we need to keep this practice in place; and even more importantly, to remember that our place, as humans, is no higher up than any other living creature. We need to retain the curiosity we learned as children and carry it through our entire lives. Whether it's a starfish, snake or butterfly, they are all our relations.

My hope is that the purchasers of these pieces remember my sentiments while wearing them and maybe even convince another busy minded adult to get curious again, about nature. Not just admiring it from afar or from behind a camera, but by getting down close into it and exploring. After all, what we respect, we will protect."

-Meaghan McRae