Downed Tools...

1. designer's block

When any form of a designer can't come up with creative ideas.

Similar to writer's block in the sense that nothing gets done.

I can't think, I have terrible designer's block!!

Once again a big gap has formed between my posts, in my drafts box there's three which were supposed to proceed this one, but I thought better of posting them. I've got to admit I'm in a bit of a slump at the moment. Before Christmas, I left uni feeling so enthusiastic about getting back to making jewellery properly, but after the Christmas commissions, I've just stopped. The last week has probably been the worst, at least before I'd been trying making a few pieces and I organised my workshop, getting everything into a place where it really flows when you work and everything's at hand, but also has a place to be put away. But this last week I've just looked at everything I've done, everything I've designed over the last few months and everything I've made previously and I've thought, "god that's useless!"

The honest answer is I've been depressed about a lot of things recently, but especially the terror of the future. I turn 25 in a few months and the idea of still not really knowing what to do with my life is scaring me. I know I want to do jewellery, but I've got no confidence in my design work and if I want to consider teaching, I'll need to do a PhD and that terrifies me more! I just don't think I would cope doing a PhD! (I'm not pandering for praise or anything by writing this, I'm just saying that this is the reason I've not been posting much.)

Another thing which has got to me is a lot of my friends from uni have been setting up Facebook fan pages. A lot of them have a year on me making wise because of me doing the Masters, but I look at them and I can't subscribe even though I want to because I'm (a) a bit jealous and (b) terrified because they seem to have a very defined style and I don't think I do. I still feel kind of all over the place.

This is the piece I was working on most recently and I got so excited about it and worked out a load of other designs to go with it, but within about a day the slump set in and it's still sitting waiting to be finished. At which point I started avoiding it by trying other things, like knitting my friends daughter a momerath for her birthday, working out new window displays for work and making buttons out of the repetitive textile prints I've been playing with:

I'm a little all over the place as you can see, though it has led to a revamp of the old blog which I'm really pleased with. I think I'm going to try and take my dad's advice and just sit down and make some stuff, good or bad, old or new, just to get making. I think being stuck at home all the time and not being in touch with my friends anywhere other than the aforementioned social networking site hasn't helped me going in on myself. If anything it was inevitable going from seeing people every day or not seeing anyone ever.

The perils of living in a town where none of your old friends now life and none of your uni friends would ever come and visit. :(

Least for now I have a backlog of Adam and Joe podcasts to keep me going :)

SAVE 6MUSIC!

Bambuseae...

These are the pieces I'm really enjoying making at the moment other than the Fidget bracelets. Bambuseae means bamboo and when I made my first squares I had done the print to represent Normal MacCaig's poems 'Adrift' and 'Moorings' which talk about boats just kind of floating quietly on water. But, everyone said that the print looked like leaves - in particular bamboo leaves - so I started trying to find a more interesting name that "Bamboo Print Pieces". So I found out that it was from the Bambuseae family, and I liked how it was spelled - though I can never remember!

Though every time I see the name I get a Regina Spektor song called Baobab in my head and Baobab (Bottle Trees) are actually these bizarre trees with hugely thick trunks and branches only at the top making them look kind of like Disney's interpretation of Mome Raths or Beaker from the Muppets. Which is unimportant but just shows the weirdness of my mind that I can go from Bamboo to Muppets in three steps.

So, anyway, here are the pieces I made using roller pressed Stirling Silver.

So that's pretty much everything from Christmas, so now to get one with some new stuff!

Enjoy!

Slate Tile Brooch

Stirling silver and slate resin brooch.

I love this material combination. The powdered slate in the resin gives this great dark but soft surface you just want to touch and any bubbles or grooves from sanding - in the right piece - can actually make it look more natural.

However...anyone else thinking a range of Dominoes is in my future?

A cheap Juno reference...

So my last proper posting was way back in July and that's just plain pathetic! The last piece I therefore posted was my mum's wedding ring.

A few things have happened since, but I'll start with a picture of the Eternity ring I made her for Christmas, which my dad asked to match the other as use the same type of stones which were in her engagement ring: diamonds and sapphires.

It was actually a really busy Christmas, which given I'd had a pretty busy few months prior is pretty weird.

My Masters finished in September and so I am now a Master of Design - I'm not sure why but every time I say that I feel as though I need to type MWHAHAHAHAHAHA! - and I'm not going to lie and say I'm not slightly relieved it's over, but I am going to say that I am missing my friends dreadfully and seeing people every day. However, I felt exactly the same when when I finished my Undergraduate degree.

I actually came up with some designs I'm really proud of, but still need fine tuning. My plan is to order some silver this week and get enough for a few new versions of these pieces which if I never take it forward with their given purpose I will take them forward just as jewellery. I even got an offer of someone who would take them on in their gallery just as pieces. Which was great.

The degree show was mad actually. We had two opening nights, the first with a couple of great lectures on design, which Mike Press used the photo of people in my glasses as a picture of the class...shame that not everyone in the class was in it and two undergrads were. I wasn't even in it! I really wish it had been all of us. It would have been a wonderful image to have to remember the year.

It's so weird being done with uni for good. I am genuinely terrified by the fact.

Since September I've been having some down time. Dad and I have made me a workshop at home, so I've now got my own private working space in which I can work away to my hearts content. It took us the best part of Sept-November to do it all, and it still needs tweaked but I am so grateful just to have been given the space. I love my parents for doing it!

December has mostly been taken up with trying to make things and doing commissions. I had 16 pieces to make on commission this Christmas, mostly for work and family but hey, work and money is always welcome wherever it comes from.

I've spent a lot of time researching and designing new ranges too, so I have lots of ideas. I discovered very late on in my Masters that I actually love using Rhino3D (a computer aided design program) to design pieces of jewellery. A lot of people use it to get things rapid prototyped prior to casting, but I really love it just as a sketching tool. I'm not brilliant at it, and I really despised it when we were taught it in 3rd year, but now I can voluntarily spend hours on it! Usually the hours between 11 and 3 in the morning!

God I sound like a geek!

Anyway, since Christmas I've been taking a little bit of down time. Partly because I was literally having a bit of a down period, the fact that I really am finished uni and not having seem my friends in months kinda making me feel a little blue. But, it is February today in about 5 minutes time and it's time to follow the advice of a scrap of paper my friend Jen left on my bench at uni at the end of 4th year:

GET BACK ON THE BENCH BOYD!

Last bit of new. I've decided to start a new Blog called Snow in a Teapot - don't ask me why I called it that, I don't have a good answer. Anyway, because this blog is about my personal work I never talk about the things that inspire me and those are the blogs I love to read. The ones which talk about design and craft and the things people are inspired by and are passionate about. So far I've just been formatting it and I've written my introduction, but haven't posted yet. I may disband the designeresearch blog, but haven't made a decision. Shall post in the next day or two, so if you read this, check it out:

Now to keep this post down in size I've posted Thumbnail pictures of a bunch of pieces I've made. However, I promise - honest to blog - that I will post the bigger pictures once I've posted this but most of them are already on my deviantArt page or my portfolio website.

So, ta ta for now, now that I'm producing more, I'll post more frequently.

Honest to blog!

Work in Progress...

On the Lochs Eye... (Hammered Silver - Sketch & Started Piece)

On the Lochs Eye Earrings (Silver, hammered and left fire stained)

On the loch's eye a cataract is forming.
Fistfuls of white make the telephone wires
loop after loop of snow bunting.

Extract: Notes on a Winters Journey with a Footnote by Norman MacCaig.

How beautiful is that image? I've tried so may times to design something around that stanza and for once I've come up with something I like...now I've said that I'll probably hate it by the morning or not go the way I wanted, but it still doesn't change that for now I have an idea.

Plus, I know the snow bunting is also a bird! How cute is the little fella?

Moorings Brooch (Sketchbook + extract from Norman MacCaig's Moorings)

Just an idea...

Suspension Brooch

Kinetic Series: Poetry Brooch with Suspension Movement

Okay, so as Jo has kindly reminded me just now, I shall have my Degree Classification results in just under and hour. So as of about fifteen minutes ago I was officially (but ever so quietly) freaking out. Anyone fancy a little bit of dutch courage in a cocktail glass?