I was introduced to them by Anastasia Young and as soon as I knew about them and their work, determined that they would have to come to the School of Jewellery to talk about their work. Fortunately, my colleague, Sian Hindle, runs an occasional lecture series, "Talking Practice" in which people connected with jewellery and jewellery-related arts talk to the students and she agreed that it would be excellent to have them come to talk as part of this series.
We rattled together a poster and hastily made all the travel arrangements and were so pleased to have done so.
The work that Nano and Claudia make is poetic, political and moving.
I spent the evening on Monday reading up on Chilean history, only to be reminded of the shameful situation when Margaret Thatcher sheltered Pinochet from extradition to Spain, where he was wanted for trial for war crimes. Another dark moment in British history.
It was "Spring Fair" time in Birmingham and that meant that loads of people I know were in town. I took the opportunity to meet up with my friend and photographer, Andrew Neilson - if you follow this blog, you know his amazing work photographing my jewellery - who had taken a stand at the NEC. We went out for dinner and a cold, clear night gave me the chance to take some photographs of the new New Street Station Building.
We've been somewhat spoiled this week at the school by having TWO "Talking Practice" lectures - first was WALKA, detailed above, the second was Michelle Jessop who is researching methods of displaying jewellery and who - as all good researchers should - left me asking more questions than she had answered.
The annual ACJ show is looming again and this year there is no theme and it is a selling show. I've been racking my brains to think on what to make for it "a collection of 6 - 10 pieces" is a tall order, especially as I have two other exhibitions looming at the end of the year, so I decided to get started. Digging through my bag of scrap metal, I found a broken Weisslock connector, which I set about repairing...
And so was born my new series, "Seven Macho Bracelets", a take on the 1970s "ID Bracelet" of which I am sure we have all melted and scrapped dozens!
The students all finished their medals for the British Art Medal Society's annual student medal competition and I am really proud of their achievements. Here are a couple of them and clicking them will take you to Flickr where you can see them all:
Friday saw the "Jewellery and More" symposium for the BA Students. A collective of previous students, known as the Continued Collective, gave talks and brought along their pre- and post-School work. I was teaching and couldn't make it to the talks, but the exhibition was great.
The reason for the late posting of last week's news is that I've been busy getting ready to move into my new house in Birmingham. It may be a sparse post next week!