Extra! Extra!

Strange how you keep some random things. Jen stuck this on my work bench in uni in 4th year after finding it in the paper, and when I packed everything up I very carefully put it away and then pinned it back up in the spare room and then my workshop. However I've decided to move it to right in front of my bench where I can see it everyday.

My posting this is fairly self explanatory I hope, I'm forcing myself back to the workbench and I'm going to get myself sorted out. Might take a while, but it's a start.

And I have a question for all jewellers who may follow my blog (lovely people that you are!) where can I get my hands on a scoring tool for scoring 45degree lines in silver. My latest ideas kind of rely on it and I have googled every version of "scoring tool" I can think of and I have had no luck. Am I just being really dumb and they're not really called scoring tools or is this some sort of magical tool which Brian the ex-technician at DoJ came up with?

I'd go borrows there, but this close to the degree show I'll just get in the way.

So, any ideas?

Thank You!

My friend asked a random question on her blog and I answered it correctly. So as a reward I got this picture and a plug too.

Thank you Ali, I love it :) xxx

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!

Peridot Tri-Corner Bracelet

(Stirling Silver with 3 Princess Cut Peridot)

Another in my tri-corner series, which normally have fidgets on them moving around the bracelet. But in this case I've used princess cut Peridots. It was a commission from my Grandpa for part of my Gran's Christmas present and Peridots are one of her favourite stones, so I chose the princess cut to match a ring she had made by one of my tutors/ex-boss a few years ago.

I'm still working on my sizing formula to make these bracelets, it's a little complicated, but I think I've got it more or less solved so long as I don't put my bracelet sizer to the wrong size to begin with. I did that at Christmas and ended up having to make two completely new bracelets. Which was time consuming, however it does mean that I have spares now to sell once I put on the fidgets.

Always a bright side!

(Need to take a better picture - benefit of it being Gran's is I still can!)

Moorings...

In a salt ring of moonlight

The dinghy nods at nothing.

It paws the bright water

And scatters its own shadow

In a false net of light.

- Moorings, Norman MacCaig

(Commission 2009 - Stirling Silver, Resin and Rubber)

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?

Resin Cufflinks '09

I got commissioned to make presents for the staff at work again this year, which is always fun, until it comes to working out what to do for the gents. Last year I made slate resin cufflinks, very simple pieces, one of which I really liked and was really proud of, the other I still feel needs tweaked. It happened again this year.

I admit I'm slightly stumped when it comes to what men wear as jewellery - it's something I really have to do some more research into as I don't have brothers and my dad and grandfather don't wear jewellery. I've also never had to buy any for a guy. So I went with cufflinks again and I decided to make them a bit colourful.

Anyway, I love the blue ones, they're a little reminiscent of Star Trek, but I worked exactly as they were in my head - which barely ever happens. I think they go with my style a little more than the yellow, but that's mostly because I couldn't quite get the colour I wanted (until after I'd filled them typically) and I managed to miss align one dot, so it's still driving me mad! I also completely polished them after I took these photos, as I'd not done the edges yet - thank God this was before my ultra sonic cleaner, pickle and quenching pot froze solid in the -14 degree weather!

Anyway, I just hope they recipients liked them!

(More on the way, just editing the pictures!)

Visa Versa Fidgets

As promised, some of the pieces I made over Christmas. Visa Versa Fidget Bracelets are made of Stirling silver, with either the fidget elements or the bracelet being polished and the other frosted. Thus visa versa. I made six of them as part of a commission with round, oval and tri-corner fidgets on either a round or flattened tri-corner bracelet. They're really light and I've been working on my own formula for sizing - it's a little complicated. I'm wanting to do a lot more with this kind of design, I've designed a load of versions on Rhino3D, just need to purchase the silver to make them!

Enjoy!

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!