Desperation

What to know what I'm doing now? Drawing pencil shavings that's blummin what! Ooooh I'm at a loss for what to do. I'm finding it hard to pick an interesting subject matter. I think I jumped to the houses thing a little too soon. I might return to it later on but for now I need more to draw from! But what? These were my ideas:
-text
-bikes
-coins
-corks (I still have a love for them since my FMP)
-clothing care labels (I really like this idea, but am struggling to think of how it can relate to the idea of repetition. But surely it counts if I repeat the form? Hmm)
-bottles
-cutlery
-keys
-stitches
-hangers
-toothbrushes
-pans
-zips
-pencil sharpenings

So I guess I better get back to drawing, I've got a lot to try out :/

Postal Gems

I seem to have stumbled across quite a remarkable jeweller. Her name is Nutre Arayavanish, and if I could steal her ideas, I would. The pieces of her work that I particularly love are her "flat-pack" paper and card pieces from the collections entitled 'Postal', 'Envelope' and 'All Year'. The idea of 'build-your-own' jewellery had never occurred to me before I saw Nutre's work, and I think it's brilliant! I'm going to HAVE to try to incorporate it into my own work somehow.

People in paper houses....

So, I've been trying to get a move on with my Design for Production project, but I've finding it hard. As I said, we're looking at repetitive forms, and Ive picked houses. So I decided to make some paper chain houses. I'm no Rob Ryan, but I'm trying!

Obviously this one's not finished yet, but I was keen to blog them because I think they're really cute.

"...and the Dish ran away with the Spoon"

I was just flicking through a few old albums on my laptop and found some images I'd scanned in from a book I'd taken out of the School Of Jewellery's teeny library. It was a whole book dedicated to SPOONS! "Sounds boring" you say? NAH AH! Have a look that these ones :



I believe that the book came about when the creator asked (I think it was 100) designers of various vocations to design a spoon. And from then the book was created. I'll check my facts when I can next access the book, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

A very literal walk down Memory Lane

I've decided (for now) to look at houses for my latest project. As I wanted to inject a healthy dose of nostalgia into this project I decided to return to places I felt would help me to achieve this feeling.
My first port of call was Burns Street, the street that I spent the first 8 or so years of my life attempting to grow up on. I've driven past it a few times since we moved out, but I don't think I'd walked down the street since we left. Everything had shrunken, that's for sure. It used to be at least twice the size that it is now. Especially No.8, the house we used to live in. I had a little spy through the window (yes, I must have looked completely normal peeking through people's front windows with a camera around my neck), the back wall looked like it had jumped a few feet closer to the window too. What horrible disaster could possibly have occurred here? I took my photos and quickly left. Fortunately the street was virtually empty in terms of cars and people (probably another effect of the disaster), so my photos weren't too littered with unwanted obstacles. UNfortunately my mother (who was posing as my chauffeur for the day) managed to park right in the way. Cheers mother!
Here's our old family home, although, when we lived there the front door was brown, not blue, and the windowsills and side gate were a colour halfway between Lime and Aubergine:

The street looks more like part of the East Is East set that I remember.

Where to next? I decided to head over to the roads around my primary school next. I knew there were beautiful houses around there. As we pulled up next to the school I felt slightly nervous. It was lunch time. There were visible children. I had a camera around my next. "Erm, lets go somewhere else mum". So we zoomed off to the road that my old best friend lived on and I got happy snapping along there instead.
I think the session was a success. I've got enough to be getting on with now and it was lovely to go back to these places.

Everything I shouldn't like....

Reid Peppard is a designer that I was exposed to whilst writing a seminar on 'Gender and Jewellery' (sounds drab, I know, but with a tongue like mine you can make anything sound vaguely interesting...or at least try to). So, as I explained in an earlier post, I went down the route of androgynous jewellery, and Peppard was on of my pit stops along the way to discovering how jewellery can be wearable by both men and women.
So here's my chance to explain what it is that I admire about Peppard's work....
I'm a devout animal lover. I've spent my whole life surrounded by pets and even doing my bit to look after and conserve local wildlife. As you can expect, my initial reaction to Peppard's taxidermy work wasn't one of adoration. But I didn't detest it. There was something intriguing about the pieces. I'll admit, the pieces showing animals faces displaying horrific expressions were slightly...disturbing, but I found myself scrolling further and further down the article I was reading. A huge wave of relief flooded my body as I read that Peppard doesn't kill any of the animals that she uses. They're either found dead as road kill or are brought in by her pet cat. So my mind happily affixed a "no animals were harmed in the making of this collection" sign to Peppards work.
The conclusion to my seminar read "So, how does androgynous jewellery represent both genders? Well, in my view it represents neither, and this is key to representing both". I hope you understand that, because I'm not going to sit and type out the whole twenty minute seminar to explain it to you. Peppards work fits this conclusion perfectly. Yes she has made some pieces specifically with women in mind (handbags and purses for example), but the main body of her collection is suited for both men and women.
Anyway, check it out. I'm not going to post pictures on here because Peppard's blog comes with one of those "adult content" warnings, and I don't want to have to put one on my own. So I'll leave a link, and you can find your way from there.
http://reidpeppard.blogspot.com/

Breeding Cookies

I was taking some photos for my new uni project ('Design for Production') the other day and took these ones. I don't know why but I really like them. It's probably largely due to the subject matter to be honest.

And look! It's pregnant!

Look what I've got!

I know it's nothing to do with my work at all, but I want to show it off! (It's a t-shirt by the way).

Bend me FLUX me anyway you want me

After our amazing feedback sessions, a course friend and I took ourselves off the the Mac to see the Flux exhibition. Flux, for those of you that don't know, is an exhibition of contemporary jewellery designers and is part of the annual Brilliantly Birmingham Exhibition.

I really enjoyed it. I went with my next project, 'Design For Production', in mind, so I was paying close attention to the methods the designers were using for their work.

A few collections really caught my eye. My favourite there was Gina Boldwin's, which is drawn from the anatomy of blackbirds. She then manipulates this form to produce dramatic pieces. Combining casting techniques and taxidermy Gina creates ornamental home wear and wearables. I think the main reason I was attracted to this work was because I'd recently presented a seminar on Gender and Jewellery, in which I looked into androgynous jewellery. One of the designers I looked into for this was Reid Peppard, who, like Gina Boldwin, uses the art of taxidermy. Being a vegetarian and animal lover, I expected to be horrified by this kind of work. But I wasn't at all. In fact, I was intrigued. I think a large part of why I didn't mind Peppard's work is because she never directly killed any of the animals she used, I can only hope that the same is true for Gina Boldwin.
Here are some pictures of Gina's work that I saw at flux (ignore the gabbering writing, I scanned in my journal entry):

The Midas Touch

Have you had that life changing point in your life? You know the one I mean. When you realise that silver jewellery is childish and shitty and that you have a love of all things GOLD! No? Oh, perhaps it's my inner Chav. Whatever. I don't think I care. I love bright gold jewellery. At the moment it's all I'll wear, in terms of jewellery.

Who am I turning to for these shimmering yellow creations? GOGO PHILIP! A while ago I purchased a pair of Gogo Phillip earrings from the Leicester TOPSHOP, and since I bought them I've worn them practically every day. There's not Gogo line in the Birmingham branch, so I was left with out a source for my gold affliction. Returning home for Christmas sorted this out. I was able to get my fix.

I adore most of the collection. It's bold, simple, and GOLD. What more can I want? No grimy antique gold here! It's bright and yellow. I love it! I seem to have neglected the rest of my jewellery collection lately, but oh well. It needs to buck up it's ideas and get a spray tan.

Here's a bit of what I'm getting excited about:

Celebration Project

My first proper project was entitled "Celebrations". We each had to pick a celebration and design and make something to be worn or used at the chosen celebration. There was also a few criteria to meet. We had to make something that included either a cube, sphere or cone, it had to be two out of the three at least. And it had to fit into a footprint of 8x8cm.

Initially I decided to look into tribal celebrations, things like Rain dances and hunting celebrations. This didn't inspire me though. I think there was too much colour. Bright yellows and reds really wouldn't suit my work. I know it's bland, but I don't like to use colour. The project that I've enjoyed the most in my whole artistic education was my Final Major Project, and for that I used NO colour. Sorry Africans, but it was never meant to be! So I got in my banana boat and sailed to blander pastures.

I had to think of something that was really 'me' so that I knew my interest would be maintained for the duration of the project. Naturally I startied thinking of food. Yeah yeah, I know. Funny isn't it. But it actually worked! I like cake and cake and cake....where do you get lots of cake? A tea party! So it was settled. Tea parties would be my theme.

But then I started to doubt this theme! A tea party itself isn't actually a celebration, it's a way of celebrating things. People don't shout out "Happy tea party!" do they? So I had to come up with a disguise for it. As tea parties are quintessentially British I had to think of a celebration to match. GOT IT! V-E Day. Victory in England day was perfect! A celebration of England and English pride, celebrated with tea parties and street parties! Perfecto!
So, what would my object be? My idea was to make some sort of contraption that made "the perfect cup of tea" but all of these ideas failed, mainly due to milk's inability to be solid. I'll scan in some of my designs once I get them back from Uni, then you might understand more. My idea shifted slightly from that to a way of adapting a cup of tea that's already been made for you. I'm not a tea drinker myself but I know how fussy people are about the way it's made. Too much milk, not enough milk, too watery, too sweet, didn't brew for long enough, too strong...blah blah blah. As it can often seem rude to ask for extras at a function of any kind I thought it'd make sense to make something that would allow a guest to control their own tea strength without making any kind of a fuss.

So I set about designing!
Before this course I'd never really done much by way of design sheets. I was used to a lazy attitude of "create at least three designs and pick the best one" that I'd learnt from a less than inspiring art teacher during my GCSEs. Now, however, we are encouraged to do as many designs as was physically possible. We are to ask ourselves questions about the design, and answer them with another design. For example I drew a tea strainer ring, with the strainer sitting on top of the finger, and asked the question "what if it was to be hidden so that no one else but the wearer knew it was there?" and designed a ring which concealed the strainer under the hand. I found it to be an extremely effective way of designing, and it certainly lead to more innovative final pieces amongst the group.
I continued to design like this until I reached a piece that I was 100% happy with. And here it is:

This part of the piece is designed to hold one sugar cube. It sits underneath the hand with the rest of the piece. There's a cup attached to the side, the wearer would take the piece off of their hand to drink from in a tea-drinking emergency! The rest of the time the cup would sit off of the side of the little finger.

As you can probably tell, this is the tea strainer part of the piece. It's designed, like the sugar cube container, to be worn under the hand. This piece is separate to the rest of it though. I think, as soon as I'm allowed to have it, I'll actually wear this part.

And this is the WHOLE thing together! Like it? My tutors seemed to. They suggested getting it silver plated, then they'd put it on display. But I like it this colour. I might ask if GOLD plating is a possibility. BLING BLING.

Here are a few pictures to demonstrate how the piece would be worn:

And that's it!

Here's Angry-Man and Crowned-Shocked-Man

I know the picture quility is poor for this one..but you get the idea..

I did an Arnie...I came back!

Well, I did it! I'm back for a second post this year.
So, what have I been up to since I last blogged? Well, I've completed my first term of University. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before (and I can't be bothered to check) but I'm doing Jewellery and Silversmithing (BA) at the Birmingham City University's School Of Jewellery. People often say "that's a bit masculine isn't it? Hitting hot things really hard and that?" and I reply "no, that's BLACKsmithing", jewellery isn't exactly glamorous though. As a result of last term I've had to do away with my fingernails, had metal infused into my fingers and clogging my hair, and have had the hands of a self-harmer. I think it's been pretty worth while though.

To start with I had my doubts as to whether I'd picked the right course or not. The first thing that we made was "a crown for a rat". Sounds cute does it? Well, I don't know any royal rats so I doubt that activity will get me any commissions in later life. So, my lack of royal rodent companions lead me to crowning a little cork man that I made over the summer:

Blogger doesn't seem to want to allow me to upload a picture of my other Cork Man, it's probably for the best, he has a rather sour attitude. Anyway, they're pretty cool aren't they? I made them with the leftover Cava corks I had from my 'Message In A Bottle' project and some clothes pins. I think the faces are what makes them cute though. Mono-Browed-Man is my favourite I think, but Shocked-Man got crowned. I'm going to have to make another post with a picture of Angry-Man and Crowned-Shocked-Man on.
READ ON!

Old habbits die hard

I'll admit. That has to be the poorest comeback in history. Even worse than that of Bradley McIntosh from S Club 7 when he attempted to form a band along with those other faceless pals of his in that nameless band.
Anyway...it's a new year so, like all of the other sheep-like creatures in the world, I'm going to claim to turn over a new leaf and do all of the things I should have done last year. I'll make no promises but I'll try to blog more. That's the most I can do. Try, because trying requires hardly any effort at all really. No one else can tell how hard you TRY to do something. A fat person can TRY to lose weight, we'll commend them for dropping a pound, when if they'd put all their effort in then could have lost at least a stone. An ugly person can TRY to be more attractive...but really, what can they do about it? And a racist person can TRY to be racially accepting, but by switching from jokes about Indians to jokes about the Scottish are they really making any effort?
So, I'm going to TRY not to be a totally bone idol slob from this day on.
You have to commend me, I'm trying, really I am.