Further to my last post, please note that I confused two pieces in my head! Kevin Coates made a Magpie Brooch which was shown at Goldsmiths': the Magpie Neckpiece to which I referred was by Charlotte de Syllas. Apologies to both makers.
The neckpiece can be seen on her website: http://www.charlottedesyllas.com/
Jewellery talk and more from Dauvit Alexander, The Justified Sinner.
Monday, August 08, 2011
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Time Regained
Just back from the incredible exhibition of work by neo-Renaissance artist-goldsmith, Kevin Coates, Time Regained at The Wallace Collection in London. I love Coates' work and have done since I saw his Magpie Brooch at Goldsmiths' Hall some time in the early 1990s, so it was an absolute joy to be able to view a large selection of his works, some older along with 12 new Penumbrae, which make up the main part of the exhibition.
Overview of the selection of older works by Kevin Coates.
Detail of Penumbra 10: Hundred-Sunned Phenix.
Well worth a visit, as is the Wallace Collection in general. Of especial interest is the collection of arms and armour:
Overview of the selection of older works by Kevin Coates.
Detail of Penumbra 10: Hundred-Sunned Phenix.
Well worth a visit, as is the Wallace Collection in general. Of especial interest is the collection of arms and armour:
US Visit Part Two
As discussed in the previous post, the recent break took us to New York City as well as other places. I'm probably going to annoy a good number of people with this comment, but both Dingo and I much preferred Pittsburgh to NYC!
In NYC, we met up with Stevie B and his partner Tabitha and spent a lovely day with them at the Museum of Arts and Design, followed by lunch and a walk in Central Park. The exhibition at MAD was the highly engaging "Otherworldly", which is an exhibition of miniature artworks:
I especially liked the miniature Jackson Pollock:
We also spent ages looking through the jewellery collection in the museum. I was especially pleased to see a piece which I have previously only seen in photographs and which was very influential on me in my own development, Richard Mawdsley's belt buckle:
The rest of our New York visit was largely taken up by three - yes, three! - visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at the armour, the mediaeval collection and the Alexander McQueen show, all of which were brilliant and which I could have spent hours more looking over.
We were also taken by my friend, Michael - who is not a jeweller - to the Brooklyn Flea Market. Here is Dingo with Michael's son, Patrick and a vintage, talking Bugs Bunny!
We also visited Evolution in SoHo, where I bought some oddities to incorporate in future works. A marvellous place, with lovely staff - a change from the usual corporate polite disinterest we encountered in most of NYC - and loads of fascinating "stuff":
There are more photographs of the New York visit on Flickr, including the touristy snaps, such as those from the top of the Empire State Building!
As mentioned before, Pittsburgh was by far the more appealing of the two cities we visited. This may have been to do with the fact that I knew more people there but the place seemed much friendlier and much more relaxed (and also far less busy) than New York. It seemed that everywhere we went, people stopped to talk to us; from the couple on the bus who randomly asked me to fix their camera on the grounds that I had a camera and therefore "knew about cameras" to the two lovely older ladies whom we met in a lift and ended up talking to for half-an-hour, our experiences in Pittsburgh were wholly positive. In fact, the only thing I could complain about in Pittsburgh is the less-than-ideal public transport system...
Pittsburgh, being an old steel-producing town, is the sort of place I love. Like Sheffield in the UK, it is a lovely combination of run-down old buildings, ultra-modern buildings, down-to-earth people, university students and artists, unpretentious and open and I am delighted at the prospect of returning next year to work at the SCC again.
Highlights of Pittsburgh included a visit to the marvellous architectural salvage centre, Construction Junction:
Where I bought a box of Formica samples and some rusty nails, though could easily have bought MUCH more if I could have thought on a way of getting it home! I'm hoping that one of the projects I will do next year at the SCC will involve taking the participants to Construction Junction.
Also, we spent a day at the audacious "Catherdral Of Learning" at Pittsburgh University:
A whole day was spent in the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History (we were thrown out at 5pm!):
Also worth seeing is the largest collection of holy relics in the world at the very beautiful St. Anthony's Chapel. It is quite hard to get to this place and it is only open for a few hours per week, but is absolutely remarkable:
This was where we went in, followed by a family. The family spent about 10 minutes looking round and left. We spent another three-quarters of an hour there and left. I wanted to get a book about the place, so we crossed the road to the gift-shop... the family were still there, having spent more of the visit in the gift shop than in the church!
The gift shop was, unfortunately, hilarious:
I say "unfortunately" because it was very small, so we couldn't laugh. The family were still there after I bought the book, unable to decide on what "Car Visor Clip" they wanted to buy.
One of the things I really wanted to do was to look around some of the derelict industrial sites surrounding the city. This didn't happen as planned, but my friend Elizabeth - another of the few non-jewellers I know in the USA - took us to the derelict care-home for the widows of veterans:
I have to thank Elizabeth, her partner, Kirk, and their family for their support and hospitality: indeed, without their support, I wouldn't have been in Pittsburgh at all. It was a connection through Kirk to the director of the SCC, Janet McCall, that got me my engagement to teach there.
Thanks also go out to everyone else who made our visit so excellent, including the people who turned up to hear my talk - Adrienne and Sharon especially - and our host, Julie, who went out of her way to make our stay at her B&B pleasurable experience. I can recommend her accommodations at Briarwood Manor to anyone!
One last image. My favourite shot of the whole trip:
Children playing in the fountains at the Philip Johnson-designed Pittsburgh Plate Glass Plaza.
In NYC, we met up with Stevie B and his partner Tabitha and spent a lovely day with them at the Museum of Arts and Design, followed by lunch and a walk in Central Park. The exhibition at MAD was the highly engaging "Otherworldly", which is an exhibition of miniature artworks:
I especially liked the miniature Jackson Pollock:
We also spent ages looking through the jewellery collection in the museum. I was especially pleased to see a piece which I have previously only seen in photographs and which was very influential on me in my own development, Richard Mawdsley's belt buckle:
The rest of our New York visit was largely taken up by three - yes, three! - visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at the armour, the mediaeval collection and the Alexander McQueen show, all of which were brilliant and which I could have spent hours more looking over.
We were also taken by my friend, Michael - who is not a jeweller - to the Brooklyn Flea Market. Here is Dingo with Michael's son, Patrick and a vintage, talking Bugs Bunny!
We also visited Evolution in SoHo, where I bought some oddities to incorporate in future works. A marvellous place, with lovely staff - a change from the usual corporate polite disinterest we encountered in most of NYC - and loads of fascinating "stuff":
There are more photographs of the New York visit on Flickr, including the touristy snaps, such as those from the top of the Empire State Building!
As mentioned before, Pittsburgh was by far the more appealing of the two cities we visited. This may have been to do with the fact that I knew more people there but the place seemed much friendlier and much more relaxed (and also far less busy) than New York. It seemed that everywhere we went, people stopped to talk to us; from the couple on the bus who randomly asked me to fix their camera on the grounds that I had a camera and therefore "knew about cameras" to the two lovely older ladies whom we met in a lift and ended up talking to for half-an-hour, our experiences in Pittsburgh were wholly positive. In fact, the only thing I could complain about in Pittsburgh is the less-than-ideal public transport system...
Pittsburgh, being an old steel-producing town, is the sort of place I love. Like Sheffield in the UK, it is a lovely combination of run-down old buildings, ultra-modern buildings, down-to-earth people, university students and artists, unpretentious and open and I am delighted at the prospect of returning next year to work at the SCC again.
Highlights of Pittsburgh included a visit to the marvellous architectural salvage centre, Construction Junction:
Where I bought a box of Formica samples and some rusty nails, though could easily have bought MUCH more if I could have thought on a way of getting it home! I'm hoping that one of the projects I will do next year at the SCC will involve taking the participants to Construction Junction.
Also, we spent a day at the audacious "Catherdral Of Learning" at Pittsburgh University:
A whole day was spent in the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History (we were thrown out at 5pm!):
Also worth seeing is the largest collection of holy relics in the world at the very beautiful St. Anthony's Chapel. It is quite hard to get to this place and it is only open for a few hours per week, but is absolutely remarkable:
This was where we went in, followed by a family. The family spent about 10 minutes looking round and left. We spent another three-quarters of an hour there and left. I wanted to get a book about the place, so we crossed the road to the gift-shop... the family were still there, having spent more of the visit in the gift shop than in the church!
The gift shop was, unfortunately, hilarious:
I say "unfortunately" because it was very small, so we couldn't laugh. The family were still there after I bought the book, unable to decide on what "Car Visor Clip" they wanted to buy.
One of the things I really wanted to do was to look around some of the derelict industrial sites surrounding the city. This didn't happen as planned, but my friend Elizabeth - another of the few non-jewellers I know in the USA - took us to the derelict care-home for the widows of veterans:
I have to thank Elizabeth, her partner, Kirk, and their family for their support and hospitality: indeed, without their support, I wouldn't have been in Pittsburgh at all. It was a connection through Kirk to the director of the SCC, Janet McCall, that got me my engagement to teach there.
Thanks also go out to everyone else who made our visit so excellent, including the people who turned up to hear my talk - Adrienne and Sharon especially - and our host, Julie, who went out of her way to make our stay at her B&B pleasurable experience. I can recommend her accommodations at Briarwood Manor to anyone!
One last image. My favourite shot of the whole trip:
Children playing in the fountains at the Philip Johnson-designed Pittsburgh Plate Glass Plaza.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Back in the UK: USA Part One
At last! A moment in this mad summer break to get a few words down about what I've been doing. Some of you will already know that I spent the last three weeks in the USA, visiting New York, Pittsburgh, Erie and Edinboro, which was quite easily the most productive and fun break I've had in weeks. Not so sure that Dingo appreciated being drafted in as my PA, though!
It all kicked off with a talk at the Society for Contemporary Craft and general networking with Sherrard and the excellent people who work there. The place is absolutely excellent and well worth a visit when in Pittsburgh. The visit was set up by my friend Elizabeth, to whom I am much indebted for not only making this introduction, but also for her wonderful hospitality while we were in the city. (Photographs of what we got up to with her in future blog entries!)
While there, I was introduced to the wonderful work of Mariko Kusimoto, work of which I wasn't really fully aware previously. She makes phenomenally complex box-structures which house many, many elements which can all be removed from the box and worn as jewellery:
At the end of the first week in Pittsburgh, Dingo and I met up with our lovely editor and powerhouse, Brigitte, to go on the Pittsburgh "art crawl", which is a monthly event in which many artists and galleries open up to the public, serving drinks and generally having a lot of fun.
We travelled in style, as this picture by Brigitte shows...
Brigitte jumped in a moment later and the poor lad had to pedal for three of us!
After, it was dinner at the marvellous Church Brew House with other Pittsburgh metalsmiths, Glen Gardner, Thomas Mullen and Brian Ferrell.
Dingo and Brigitte ponder one of Glen's printed-metal rings.
More general photographs of Pittsburgh can be seen here.
Later in the break, we hooked up with Sue Amendolara and went to Erie, where she quite unbelievably managed to get us unlimited access to the fantastic art-deco Warner Theatre in the town.
More photographs of the visit can be seen by clicking the photograph above.
We then went to Edinboro, where I gave a talk on Electrolytic Etching, with a demonstration of how easily the process could be done with recycled mobile phone chargers!
After the demonstration, we all went back to Sue's house for a party, which was lovely. Especially lovely was the cake made by her delightful daughter, Leah and her friend Maeve:
A tribute to my pig earring!
End of Part One. More tomorrow.
It all kicked off with a talk at the Society for Contemporary Craft and general networking with Sherrard and the excellent people who work there. The place is absolutely excellent and well worth a visit when in Pittsburgh. The visit was set up by my friend Elizabeth, to whom I am much indebted for not only making this introduction, but also for her wonderful hospitality while we were in the city. (Photographs of what we got up to with her in future blog entries!)
While there, I was introduced to the wonderful work of Mariko Kusimoto, work of which I wasn't really fully aware previously. She makes phenomenally complex box-structures which house many, many elements which can all be removed from the box and worn as jewellery:
At the end of the first week in Pittsburgh, Dingo and I met up with our lovely editor and powerhouse, Brigitte, to go on the Pittsburgh "art crawl", which is a monthly event in which many artists and galleries open up to the public, serving drinks and generally having a lot of fun.
We travelled in style, as this picture by Brigitte shows...
Brigitte jumped in a moment later and the poor lad had to pedal for three of us!
After, it was dinner at the marvellous Church Brew House with other Pittsburgh metalsmiths, Glen Gardner, Thomas Mullen and Brian Ferrell.
Dingo and Brigitte ponder one of Glen's printed-metal rings.
More general photographs of Pittsburgh can be seen here.
Later in the break, we hooked up with Sue Amendolara and went to Erie, where she quite unbelievably managed to get us unlimited access to the fantastic art-deco Warner Theatre in the town.
More photographs of the visit can be seen by clicking the photograph above.
We then went to Edinboro, where I gave a talk on Electrolytic Etching, with a demonstration of how easily the process could be done with recycled mobile phone chargers!
After the demonstration, we all went back to Sue's house for a party, which was lovely. Especially lovely was the cake made by her delightful daughter, Leah and her friend Maeve:
A tribute to my pig earring!
End of Part One. More tomorrow.
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