When artist and jeweler Miranda Britton became a volunteer board member for YWCA Muskoka, she knew the organization did good work but it wasn’t until she started hearing individual stories that she realized how much of an impact it had on the lives of local women and girls.
“Just to hear those first-person accounts made it so clear to me that the programming is making a real difference to individual people,” said Britton. “With a non-profit, it’s easy to say, ‘they have this program and this program’ but then you hear those one-off stories about the difference it has made in one person’s life, and that they’ve completely changed how they look at themselves and how they look at their lives, and that they have these aspirations that they never would have had before.”
Britton no longer sits on the YWCA’s board of directors, but that experience got her thinking how she could help get word out about the work the organization does, one that went beyond the usual literature.
“I was trying to find another way that I could communicate that to people – I make things and I love to work with text,” said Britton. “I have a background in set design and reading plays and creating spaces and objects to do with that text, and I love working with words as my source material.”
She thought it would be compelling to use the words of women impacted by the YWCA’s programs services as inspiration for necklaces, and was chosen as a recipient of an Ontario Arts Council 2017 Craft Project grant for the idea.
Miranda Britton with the YWCA-inspired necklace, Stability (Photo: Scott Turnbull)
Britton originally planned to use the words of twenty women and girls, to match YWCA Muskoka’s twenty years of service to the community, “but there have been so many wonderful women who have helped shape this organization that choosing just a handful of them didn’t feel right.” Instead, an open call was put out to the community for women to share their stories of how the YWCA had made an impact on them.
“As the stories started to come in, I began to see commonalities and themes,” said Britton. “And there were some really poignant statements that I was able to pull out of the submitted stories and use as anonymous inspiration for the twenty necklaces.”
Empower by Miranda Britton
The first piece she created, entitled “Empower”, is accompanied by the quote: “Whenever I fell back into overwhelm, they were there to support, encourage, nurture and empower”.
“Most of the designs for these necklaces came from a really strong initial impulse that came to me when reading the selected quotes,” explained Britton. “With ‘Empower’ I just imagined a solid form rising to the surface above a messy cloud of overwhelm.”
Each of the finished pieces will be accompanied by the text that inspired it. Britton may also create an online catalogue that showcases the works and their inspiring messages, one that could possibly be made available in print if people express an interest in ordering it.
The necklaces will be auctioned online from October 18 to 26 at www.32auctions.com/TwentyNecklaces with 100 per cent of the proceeds being donated to YWCA Muskoka. They will also be on display at this year’s Women of Distinction Awards Gala on October 25.
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