I need to get into the habit of posting more frequently.
The last couple of weeks have been very busy, mainly working on the cufflinks for the Caledonian Sleeper which I am not allowed to show you until after the press-launch on 23rd March. It is a real production job and not the sort of thing I really enjoy, even though I am going to be so incredibly proud to know that my work is part of something so big and impressive.
Other than that, we've had a visit from Maira at Gemstones Brazil and I bought some more stones from her stock of incredibly well-cut gemstones:
I've also been working on my entry for the Association for Contemporary Jewellery annual competition, this year on the theme of "Sleight of Hand". I've decided to take a damaged and discarded silver watch case from an 1898 pocket watch and make a very untraditional watch and chain for a traditional magician.
The case was found in a bag of scrap bought for casting and always struck me as too interesting to melt down, so it has sat in my box of materials for years, along with the brass game spinner shown here:
I've only too late realised that I didn't photograph the case before I attached the skull and ring, which was an oversight. The back and sides of the case are quite elaborately engraved:
The tubing in the photograph above is to become the toggle which holds the chain into the waistcoat button and in keeping with the theme, I've engraved this to become a wand:
The whole piece is called "Pulling Rabbits Out Of A Hat" in reference to the main centrepiece, a fob of a rabbit in a hat:
The hat has been modelled in Rhino to allow it to be set accurately around the hatband:
I'm having this 3D-printed but did run a test on the mill:
More soon on this project.
Yesterday, I found out about and exciting project, The Contemporary Jewellery Exchange 2015. Olga, who runs the project, was short of one person for her pairs and through Mark Fenn, I became the final member of the project!
What delighted me most was learning that I was to be paired with Jan Donaldson in Australia for my exchange. I absolutely love her work:
I have just the piece to start me off on my piece for her, a ceramic doll body...
More on this soon, too!
My students have been blowing me away with their stone-setting and CAD abilities this term. These pieces were both designed, made and hand-set by students on my HND course:
 |
| Ring by Paula Sloan |
 |
| Ring by Mariusz Suliga |
Finally, I received Andrew Neilson's amazing photograph of the watch chain I made for photographer Simon Murphy. Delighted, as ever!
