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!

Bamboo Adrift...

Okay, so I know I haven't posted in forever...I haven't posted on my Masters blog either but that's because I've lost momentum...but finally I have something new. Something I want to do more of.

I've been trying to work out some way of doing my Shoal pattern without etching as it's often quite unreliable and expensive to send away. So I tried roller printing, which if I want to do outwith uni would mean an investment in a £300ish piece of machinery, however it's still cheaper and quicker. Anyway, this was the result. I'd wanted it to be quite fishy, but it looks more like bamboo leaves or little boats adrift in the sea.

The little boats obviously fit a little better with my previous work. These however were me giving myself a little time off. My masters is driving me mad because I'm not making anything but all I can think about is jewellery and making and soldering and polishing and enamelling and developing my style as a jeweller...

*sigh* I hope to get back soon. But right now the 3rd years are the only people really keeping me sane - though often driving me insane too! - but Friday is my favourite day of the week and its about to come to an end, which is really sad.

So, if I don't post again before the end of the undergrad term (mine runs right up until September if I pass this term) and you have your assessments...

Good Luck!

Frustration...

Okay, so I really need to find something to add to this blog which I appear to be neglecting...I need to make a decision seeing I'm not currently making very much at all and all my work is in the form of mind maps...do I just update this blog on the rare occassion that I make something new or do I redirect people to my new one perminantely? Of course I could double up the information...

Anyway, I'm keeping blog 2 very up to date with lecture notes and research things and the only piece of jewellery I have to offer you is these earrings which I made for my parents to give Pauline for her birthday. I hope they gave her something to wear as her something new too as she surprised everyone by marrying her partner the same day. So congratulations to them and enjoy to anyone who wants to see the earrings.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

I took the road less travelled by,

And that made all the difference.

Robert Frost

I have a little bit of news, I've been accepted onto the Masters of Design course at Duncan of Jordanstone for this September, so I shall be returning to the old university for another year. I'm excited, scared beyond belief and hopeful that it will be very valuable along with doing the Artist in Residency. It was all a bit of a rush and I think most of my friends assumed I’d decided not to make an application, but I think this is right.

Anyway I’ve been working on a few new design using quite chunky hollow forms on different earring fittings as well as playing with the draughts idea again...

Hollow Form Earrings (White Precious Metal)

Hollow Form Earrings (White Precious Metal)

Found Object Draughts Set (Buttons on Ceramic Tile)

Obviously this isn’t a finished piece – if it was I think I might be certified – but ideas come in all shapes and forms, in this case me scribbling on one of the tiles on my workbench in permanent marker and emptying a pencil case full of buttons all over my workrooms floor (I seriously keep finding them everywhere, I think they’re breeding!). I just really like the idea of using buttons for some of the travelling pieces, mostly because I just like buttons when they’re set like a traditional cabochon, but also because it does fit in with the travelling theme.

Think about it this way. How many buttons have you lost while you’ve been out? They wouldn’t give spare buttons on shirts/trousers/coats or give you sewing kits when you’re on holiday if I was seriously the only person ever to have done that. You go off on holiday and you drop things and you think bugger, I actually needed that. You always see buttons and coins and things dropped by people as they go about their lives and I love that.

It’s like seed dispersal but in button form.

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...

Shoal Earrings #2

Shoal Earrings #1 (Photoetched Silver)

These are the earrings I wear all the time, they're the first piece of jewellery I've really made for myself. They're really,comfortable and although (as you may be able to see) they've tarnished a little, I actually quike the discolouration - jewellery's meant to be worn, not hidden in boxes. It's quite sad thinking of things you've made just sitting in their little boxes all alone.

Shoal Earrings #2 (Photoetched silver)

These earrings were part of a commission along with a matching necklace, I admit. I didn't want to sell them. I'd have quite happily worn these down in London. Anyone who knows me well will know that I rarely go anywhere without earrings on, plus, despite us not really being encouraged to make earrings at university, they always sell really well.