Reflective Writing

At our meeting yesterday we were given a basic introduction into reflective writing. I found this to be very useful because it has the way to structure the writing and forces me to say everything that would be important in relation to my work. I find it easier to talk about the actual piece that I made than the reason why I made it (because I make pieces for their beauty and not for their meaning) but I am going to try use this format for the creativeness behind my pieces.  

Reverse Taper Shank

Ring and topper soldered together.

Reverse tapered shank.

I decided to do a reverse tapered shank on my ring. I was inspired to do this by the Dahlia rings by Sharron Thompson. I like how her shanks are very simple but with busy toppers. 

This is my first reverse taper since second year, it was a group effort from us (B tech class) trying to remember how it was done. I was very intimidated but was quite happy with the result.

Flower Ring Topper

Flower Ring Topper.

This is the ring topper I made from 4 pierced out plates which were then filled with filigree (I didn't fill all the "petals" because I felt it would be too much.) I am very happy about the way it turned out. To me it looks well balanced with the angle of the four plates.

I am setting a stone on the middle of the ring, originally it was going to be this cubic but then after talking to a fellow student he pointed out to me that it is silly to put a cubic into a ring which had so much effort put into it. So next week I will be going to get a stone to use in this ring.

Sketch of Flower Ring

Drawing from my sketch book.

This is a design I have done for the upcoming digital festival. 

I want to create a statement piece, so I can diffuse it into other pieces.

The Jeweller's Florist

While looking through Facebook this weekend I came across a jeweler from Cape Town, Shannon Thompson who owns The Jeweller's Florist. I was actually shocked when I saw her page because of the similarities between our work. She does large floral cocktail rings, Africa and animal pendants. I asked her if I could do an email interview with her to ask her about her jewellery and she is very interested in doing it, but I don't know what to ask.

Dahlia Rings - Sterling silver and topaz 

22ct Yellow Gold plated Sterling Silver.

Africa Necklaces

The Baby Rhino Pendant in Sterling Silver,

Over-fired Enamel

I really like how the enamel on my piece has the blackened edges.

I never really knew exactly why this happened but while reading up on enameling for my first chapter I came across the reason why this happens. I'm happy about this because now I can talk about it in a bit of a more academic way.

My enameled Art Deco inspired Earrings

The Art of Enameling by Linda Darry

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.