Cadmium Daniels
she/her
Virginia Beach, VA, USA
Cadmium Daniels is a metalsmith based in Norfolk, Virginia. She aims to convey deep emotions and experiences through the language of flowers and nature with metal. While attending college at Old Dominion University for chemistry she started taking metalsmithing classes. Dealing with her mother's rapidly declining health, she had to step away form her education to help her family. She focuses mostly on the expression of her emotions and the outlet art allows her with the traumatic and chaotic events happening in her life. She hopes to use her experiences and knowledge to keep pursuing art.
“My works take a view on how the human mind finds fantasy and whimsy as a means of escape. My current projects are focused on the different stages of grief and how people have different perspectives on how it affects them. Instead of focusing on specific people in the mourning process I try and focus my work on the emotions and the way people process them. From how some emotions weigh heavily on your mind, to something you physically can’t let go of, or the inability to breath. I use Victorian and international Floriography as inspiration.”
How does your work relate to the theme connection?
“Til’ Death has a duel set of connections it relies upon. It was a political metaphor for both climate change and pollution as well as the right to marriage specifically from a lesbian perspective. This piece was created while I was dating a woman who loved bees. We spoke in depth about both the impact they had on the world and the world couldn’t live without them and the topic of gay marriage and how in the current political climate it felt like we could almost lose the right to marry who we choose. Guilty Breath is the connection of our actions and the those around us. When going though grief we blame ourselves for not doing more, for not striving more for something. This applies to family, politics, culture, and community. Guilt is directly formed form our connection to everything around us, and it can break our connections. Goodbye focuses on the acceptance that not all connections stay forever. Not every connection you have is healthy or stays the same. Sometimes you have to accept that a connection has changed forever. Goodbye focuses on the painful part of moving forward in life."
"Til' Death", copper, enamel, 3.5” x 3” x 1”, 2023
What role does connection play in your creative process?
“Connection plays heavily into almost everything I make. I gather inspiration and passion from the connections to the people in my life, the nature surrounding me, the politics that affect me and the people around me, and the land around me. Through these connections is how I navigate myself and my artwork. My family and what has happened to us has greatly impacted myself and my emotions. It is where I pull some of my deepest emotions to create now. I was raised with the concept that we are a part of the world and all its nature and thus must not take it for granted. I find balance and profound meaning in how humans have taken nature and used it to create a second language. How humans from all of the world separated by time and distance have found the need to assign meanings to flowers and plants shows such a deep connection to the world around us. How each culture can also have differing views on the meaning of one plant also shows the differences in what we value. I enjoy exploring different physical connections in my pieces and how they represent other meanings. In both Guilty Breath and Goodbye, I use chains to represent the path of liquid. Guilty Breath does not have a mechanism to keep it closed because it is supposed to be formed to fit who ever wears it. In Til’ Death, a brooch is supposed to be held close to the heart, the same as the vow Til’ Death Do Us Part."
"Goodbye", copper, brass, nickel, silver, crystal, cubic zirconium, 9” x 10” x 11”, 2023
What connection(s) does your queerness make to the world around you?
“We as a queer community have been using the language of flowers for so long. To communicate with lovers and friends during times of fear. From sapphic poems to lavender boys, the queer community has always had a close connection to flowers and nature. I have found great comfort in using the language of flowers to speak my mind when I feel I have no voice. I am a demisexual panromantic woman and sometimes it feels as though my connection to the queer community isn’t ‘real’. I have heard people talk about pansexual and bisexual people are just confused and need to pick a side. I have witnessed people I once considered my friends condemn asexual and demisexual people from taking resources from the community and saying that we don’t have a place. It almost feels as though there is a disconnection. Even with this strange disconnect I have done my best to be a pillar of support to those in the queer community whom face a more dangerous battle with the world around us. The community needs kindness to stay strong and to protect those who need it most."
"Guilty Breath", nickel, silver, cubic zirconium, crystal, 11” x 6.5” x 3.5”, 2023
