another visit to birmingham

A flying visit to Birmingham for a meeting and the opening of Terry Hunt's marvellous "All Golds" exhibition. Terry has been one of the main educators in the jewellery industry in the UK for over 40 years, teaching at the jewellery school of UCE in the city at all levels of expertise. In his way, he has taught many of the current "movers and shakers" of the industry and to celebrate his retirement - it is hard to imagine how anyone could ever replace his boundless energy and educational expertise and skill - he invited 100 of his previous students to exhibit two pieces: one student piece from when he taught them, and one current piece.
The show is excellent and is well worth a visit if remotely near Birmingham (UK).

Terry explaining something about the work of Martyn Pugh.

 

Work by Claire Denham-Smith (For Stephen Webster, right).

Work by Abigail Stradling.

Overview of the show.

As I always say when I come back from Birmingham, I love the place!
This has something to do with the jewellery tool shops there and I succumbed to temptation and bought a mini tube-bender:

Sorry about the photograph. I took it with my phone!

---

Been back in the workshop. The lovely Marvin made this piece:

Which reminded me of the skull-spoons I made some time ago from old spoons.

So I asked him if he would mind me making a version using a spoon. Of course, the whole thing grew legs and I had intended it to be finished by Hallowe'en but my stone dealer came to visit and she had some oddly-cut garnets which just had to be incorporated and so it won't be ready for Hallowe'en at all. Never mind.
This time, instead of cutting the spoons, I took a leaf from Marvin's book and chased the spoon into a skull form:

One dog-ugly silver teaspoon. A souvenir of Florida!

In pitch, ready to chase.

Chased and cut.

Finished and stone-set.

More on this soon.