Art Deco Diffusion

Trying to diffuse the cost of the piece and not in the size. So for the Art Deco project I played around with this idea of making the same piece (earrings) but with cheaper materials and I also tried to make the pieces less time consuming to produce.

Oxidized sterling silver with fine silver filigree wire.

Copper with red vitreous enamel and sterling silver shepherds hooks.

Patina copper with sterling silver shepherds hooks.

Art Movement

Will mass-produced contemporary jewelry achieve museum-grade credibility? Recent efforts by some makers to adopt gallery codes of conduct insure that it will. But unless jewelry artists concurrently expand their modes of production and reach out to the greater public with affordable work, that enriches their lives with disposable wonders, those museum captions might one day read like epitaphs to an art movement with no circulation. (Lignel, 2008)

While writing my 1st chapter I came across this paragraph in one of the articles in Klimt02. It took me awhile to figure out exactly what he was trying to say but I think Lignel is saying that as jewellers we should be making a concerted effort to make our jewellery more accecessable to the public, it should have a wide appeal and not be only seen as art works to be kept in museums.

Breast feeding Brooch

So I got this order for a brooch, the picture has different levels to it so I thought the best way to tackle this would be by using Rhino. I really enjoy using Rhino, I love watching it cut and then seeing the end result. Although today we had a slight power outage for about 15 seconds so I had to restart my cut from the beginning.

Picture given to referance

Drawing done in Rhino

Rhino cut roughing done.

Alcohol Ink Fail

These were my 5th piece for the Art Deco exhibition. They were sterling silver earrings with alcohol ink and then coated in a varnish to prevent the ink from coming off the piece, so I spent yesterday spaying on several coated of the varnish to make sure that the ink wouldn't come off but then I was a little silly yesterday because I put the pieces on newspaper and the varnish stuck to it. 

So I started again today and thought I was being very clever when I did it on plastic but on my second to last coat of the varnish a piece got stuck to the plastic and ripped of a piece of the ink. So...I will not be exhibiting these.

Enamel Fail

I tried to do a pair of enameled earrings but I think my metal wad too thin and because of the gaps in the earring it made it a very weak surface to enamel on and when the metal moved to enamel came off. I will have to use a slightly thicker metal next time.

Cost Diffusion

I found a shop on Etsy which does the cost diffusion It is called Shoprarebird and the owner is Pauline Stanley. I am looking into for my Art Deco range. Where you make the same or similar pieces but either your metal cost is lower or your hourly labour cost is lower due to the piece being simplier to make. 

https://www.etsy.com/

Minimalist Copper Faceted Bead Necklace on Copper Chain
$24.00

Minimalist Silver Faceted Bead Sterling Silver Necklace
$34.00

Minimalist Gold Plated Faceted Bead Gold Filled Necklace
$34.00

Geometric Pyrite Minimalist Sterling Necklace - Oxidized Sterling Silver Chain
$38.00

Art Deco Pendant

This is the pendant I made from the earring which was too heavy. I think this piece turned out very well considering that it was originally meant to be an earring.

The resins ombre technique was effective but if I had to do this again I would not have put the resin in the chased lines because they were very shallow so some of the resin was removed in the sanding process.

Sunshine Earrings

I used different colours in each gap of these earrings slowly going from red to yellow. I decided not to use a backing because of the weight issue I had earlier but the problem was when I applied pressure to the resin in popped out easily.  So in my next pair I will bur a little ridge in them for the resin to sit in.

Art Deco Earrings with Alcohol Ink

I am very excited to create a finished piece with my alcohol ink because I played around with it before earlier in my Btech but never used it for any completed pieces.

Ombre Resin

This is the earring which I made which was too heavy, playing around with it to see if it could work as a pendant. 

I wanted to try do the resin so that it goes from light to dark. I am very happy with the way it turned out but because the piece is slightly curved I have had to put another layer of resin over the top to get the resin all level.