Masters of Modern Jewellery

A busy week! I spent all day in London on Thursday, first of all visiting a private breakfast view of the superb "Masters of Modern Jewellery" exhibition at Beetles + Huxley, curated by Joanna Hardy. Joanna is something of a powerhouse in the jewellery world more than you might, perhaps, imagine if your only knowledge of her is as the antiques expert on "The Antiques Roadshow". (I've previously reviewed her luxuriously-produced "Emeralds" book here.)

Beetles + Huxley is primarily a fine-art photography gallery and during the talk, Ms Hardy made a remark which I think is very important to those of us who are involved in jewellery. She said that it is important to view jewellery in an 'art gallery' as opposed to a space dedicated to jewellery display; that it changes the way in which the viewer responds to the work.

The show is amazing and I really recommend ordering a copy of the very smart catalogue from the website link above. It is so good to be able to see the work of these legends - including Tom Rucker, Jacqueline Mina (whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time at the show) and Andrew Grima - in a thoughtful presentation. I would suggest that maybe the collection deserved a bit more space in the gallery but I also understand that this may not have been possible. Additionally, the photography in the catalogue does nothing to suggest the scale of the pieces but these are inconsequential gripes about an otherwise brilliant show.

There is a video about the show here:

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Off to the AGM of the ACJ after that, where we talked a lot about the coming events for 2015 - 2017, and lots of exciting things are in the offing, including a 2017 conference in Hull - as part of the City of Culture festivities -  which celebrates 20 years of the founding of the ACJ.

Other business included choosing the title for our 2015 members' exhibtion, which is to be "Sleight of Hand". More on that soon.

After the meeting, we had a talk from the engaging and philosophical Simon Fraser who was talking about his "Ultra-Indigo" consultancy project.

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In my own workshop, I've been finishing off Christmas (yes, already) orders and making up a few pieces of stock, including this "Jewelled Antler" bracelet:

The chain was dug up on a friend's allotment!

My first year diploma students really impressed me this week with their first-ever wax-carvings. I will confess that the initial results of wax-carving are often less-than interesting and are rarely good, so it is with some pride that I can present these pieces:

For details, click on the image.