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.