Thursday, December 19, 2013

End of Year

Today was the last full day in the workshop before I shut for just over two weeks. I'll be in for the morning tomorrow, the workshop festive breakfast, the "Secret Santa" and then heading off to Brighton. Although I normally take holidays in my stride, this last three months since summer has been utterly crazy, what with commissions, finishing off unfinished projects, photoshoots, the Scottish Style Awards... there is enough in that time to fill a normal year.

In terms of finishing off the unfinished work, I've been completely focused on finishing my Alexander McQueen tribute piece, "Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ", a cuff based on a handcuff from which hang two spherical "handbags" made from recycled iron spheres which I found in a burnt-out factory in Kent.

I finished the bangle and the sphere titled "The Illusion of Freedom Buys The Power of Destruction" this week. Followers of the blog and people who know about McQueen will understand the falconry imagery.

Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ - 91a

Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ  - 87

Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ  - 85

Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ  - 88

All the metalworking is done and all that remains is to get the piece lined. I want to line it with feathers but fur would be just as good and probably more robust.

Today I started on the second sphere, "Before The Fall" which is going to be colourful and much lighter in tone, though the imagery is still pretty dark. It features a pendent apple which I started to make today by chasing out some thick copper:

Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ - WIP  - 96

For some reason, I've had Marilyn Manson's "Apple of Sodom" in my head the whole day while chasing this and so it made me laugh when I took the other half out and found that it looked rather more like the "Red-Pepper of Sodom". Not quite the same. It still has a bit of a red-pepper quality but I've knocked most of that out of it!

Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ - WIP  - 97

The plan is to pavé-set this with zircons. There are going to be a lot of stones in this piece:

Fashion:Victim - In Memoriam ALMcQ - WIP  - 96



I received a lovely and unexpected present today. Over a year ago, I got in touch with William Mitchell to find out if he was behind the amazing tower in the shopping centre in Cwmbran, Wales:

Concrete Aztec

As it turned out, it was by him and we had a few email exchanges, during which he mentioned that he was writing his autobiography and I asked him to keep me posted as to when it was published. It was with some surprise that I received this today in the post:

Self Portrait

It seems only fair that I promote it to you if you are interested! It is listed on Amazon and on the publisher's website.



Hope that everyone has a great festive season and a good new year. I'll leave you with the very un-festive Marilyn Manson!