Fragiltiy

This quote expresses my interpretation of fragility: " Of delicate frame or constitution: delicate, dainty, thin, light, slight" (Tulloch 1993:92) According to Fontanna (1993:104) "Flowers are universal symbols of youth and also vitality, but because of their impermanence they also connote fragility." Fragility can be interpreted as something of transient value.

I have been exploring the following aspects of fragility and its connotations:

1. 
   
   
   Appearance: something that appears delicate such as a delicate translucent porcelein vase



2. 
   
   
   Interaction: something that has to be handled with care such as a new born baby



3. 
   
   
   Impermanence: something that does not last such as a flower bud

Transience

Transience

I foound an essay on Freud's view on transience and it was very interesting! http://www.freuds-requiem.com/excerpt.html

Freud speaks about two views on transience:

1. Pessimistic View: Something that is transient leads to a loss of it's worth




2. Optomistic view: "transient value is scarcity in time. Limitation in the possibility of enjoyment raises the value of enjoyment" (Strachey 2005:1)

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Transience is " the state or qualtiy of being transient", and further "transient: passing with time;transitory: the transient beauty of youth" (lidia M. Child) (soukanov 1996:1901). I see it as something that is impermanent and something that will change and is not renewable.

In the book that Fontanna Wrote on signs and symbols he talks about flowers being a "universal symbol of youth and vitality , but because of their impermanence they also connote fragility."

little people silhouettes

I started piercing out little people silhouettes and after a discussion about them it ws decided that I should take photo's of all the people I know and cut their silhouette out of silver.



I love the way that not one will ever be the same, every silhouette is different! they little, funny shaped (if you dont realise what they are) and they each have their own character especially to me as I know whose silhouettes they are. I like how they are each different yet look like they belong together! To show that each one is different I could give them each their own pattern but that is still to come!

little people

I have been working with little people for a while but never seem to quite come out the way I expect them to. A group of the little model people melted in the hot silicone mould and then the other group in the cold silicone mould got bubbles and the casts where I cast them straight the plastic residue stayed behind in the investment. I have now decided to try again with these tiny tiny litle ones I found. I have a few ideas for these ones, some in silver some in a painted colour some in gold.....

spring Glamour september

My enamelled colourful necklace was in Glamour right in time for Spring.

Bright Burst

Bright Burst

These piece is a metaphor for a youthful expression of life and it's association with the freshness of spring indicating a colourful stage of life, full of possibilities, can be seen in the flowers that are in full bloom. the hydrangea flower is most colourful when coming into full bloom.. I am using the flower in the way in which Fontanna talks about the flower being a "universal symbol of youth and also vitality, but because of their impermanence they also connote fragility" (1993:104). The stage of life expressed in this neck piece is on that does not last for long and this ties into the transient aspect of my concept.

This technique is so very delicate and fragile that whilst it is being worn the wearer is constantly aware of protecting the neck piece as it is so very fragile, which speaks of the fragility of life and the way in which one needs to guard it and protect it.

This piece was in the Glamour Magazine SA for spring

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colours

In my explorations to capture the appearence of fragility I found that sterling silver was not the best option for these delicate fragile flowers due of many reasons so I decided to use fine silver because:

1. Fine silver created a soft white when left in the acid whereas sterling silver created a dirty white or a harsh white depending on the state of the acid.
   

Sterling silver links and unpolished white fine silver flowers. The thin burnished edges of the flower allows for a delicate feeling because it shows how thin the flowers are.

To keep the flowers unpolished whilst making the links highly polished I had to protect the flowers surface as seen below. I felt that this black colour was such a contrast to the white flowers. It reminded me of when I was thinking of contrasts and contradictions for example my soldiers and flowers with the contradiction or the contrast being in the subject matter. This time I created a contrast or contradiction using colour.

The black flowers ( a very harsh and un-natural colour for a flower) sharing one necklace with the white soft feeling of the unpolished silver flowers. The pure, uncontaminated, delicate flowers become whiter as the black, dark and harsh flowers move in. It shows dark vs light. The dark being the realisation of the real world around me that is swallowing up my pure, fresh, uncontaminated view I have on life, as I get older and start to understand what is going on around me. The black contradicts the meaning of the flower which is a meatphor for life.

I am wanting to explore making different coloured hydrangeas with different methods. I have tried the enamel which gives beautiful bright colours.

Hydrangea

Hydrangeas

For my hydrangeas I am focusing on these aspects:
1. the white colour of the metal
2. creating one stylised shape that could repeated and grouped to gether to look like a bunch of hydrangeas
3. delicacy in the thickness of the flowers
4. choosing a few of the elements out of the bunch of silver ones and gold plating them
5. producing different sizes of the 'hydrangeas' to see what size is most effective in a bunch or a collection

Below is a brooch that I made for a customer Jacaui. I tried to get the flowers as white as possible and smaller than usaul to see what a circular shape lined with hydrangeas would look like.
I slightly domed these shapes, in doing so I feel as if there is a slight uniformity in the group of flowers and I am wanting to explore different ways that I could create this uniformity without taking away the 'individual" aspect of each flower. I could create this uniform aspect by adding something to the shape of the flowers or using colour ect.


I decided to try use the circle shape to represent hydrangeas and to group them together in different ways to see how they look.
Just experimenting. I know they far from looking like hydrangeas at the moment.

Focus and Aim: part 1

As I am busy writing and planning a report I have had to re-focus more closely on what I am doing and to research and focus on the areas that I am busy with.

In terms of my area of focus for my report, I am busy researching:

1. Art Jewellery: what is art jewellery and who are some art jewellers

2. Narrative jewellery- jewellers who create pieces of jewellery that tell a story or have a message behind them

3. Fragility- what aspects of fragility am I looking at? How have other jewellers used fragility in their work?

4. Transience- what is transience. What is my view on it? who else speaks about transience?

In terms of the work I am busy with at the moment
1. Hydrangeas- elements that are bunched together, light, delicate, fragile
2. soldiers- soldier cut outs and cast little soldiers. They create a contrast with the soft delicate hydrangeas
3. little people- tiny model people and little silhouettes of people (my world)

army men

I have been cutting out little silhouette army men and had an idea of making makume gane plate and cutting them out of there to make them camoflagued.

So nick guided me through this technique....

Step 1: fusing the silver and copper layers together

Step 2: rolling the layers once they were fused (one layer started to peel away as it was not fused properly and it created a beautiful pattern.

Step 3: starting to burr in the pattern

I learnt that it is better to use a wider burr than a small little one as more pattern comes out with the bigger burr

The pattern done with the smaller burr.

step 5: rolling out the pattern

Jack cunningham

Jack cunningham is a jeweller who creates narrative pieces of jewellery with personal meaning behind them and he uses objects as metaphors to do so. He uses visual imagery to tell stories and to make statements.

In his series love seeds, he creates brooches that are metaphors for the different seasons in order to convey his theme of the "sentiment of love"

Cunningham, Summer

This series can be seen on his website http://www.jackcunningham.co.uk/jack_phd/f.html

These brooches are similar to my trees that show different seasons.

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Sharon Church

Sharon Church is a jeweller who uses organic imagery and her works are rich in meaning. Her works show plant life in its different stages of life and the process of change that comes with these stages in it's cycles.

http://sharonchurchjewelery.net

Sharon Church- Foliate Harness

Silver, leather

This piece of Church's which I have taken out of the Metalsmith of 1999 is a piece which shows the cycles of life in the way in which the leaves grow and form a circle round the neck. It speaks of growth and renewal.

Art Jewellery

A while ago jewellery followed very traditional Functions and served as a method of expression for the wearer. There are about 4 traditional functions that Metcalf talks about in his essay "the nature of jewellery". Now days however, Jewellery has shifted its focus to include the maker aswell as the wearer. Metcalf talks about and Art jeweller who is not concerned with economic demands. She engages with the world around her and uses her jewellery to express her thoughts and feelings. Jewellery becomes a conceptual form of art for the artist jeweller.

Quickenden talks about the new functions of jewellery in his papers on the Virtual Gallery of Contemporary jewellery.

To Read Metcalf's essay on "The nature of jewellery", Click this link: http://http://www.brucemetcalf.com/pages/essays/nature_jewelry.html

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A few memories from my recent travels

Poland: Krakouw

In the mountains

Krakouw is a city in Poland which is full of history.

Above is the old city centre of krakouw and it is one of the biggest medieval square's in Europe.

Above is Auschwitz- A concentration camp.

London: site seeing

The Gold smith's company in St Pauls London

Taking the escilator at the tube station I was reading the adverts and saw an advert for an exhibition called "Mindfull of Silver"

I followed the directions which led to a beautiful old building where the exhibition was held. For this exhibition the goldsmiths had been given a topic of "vessel" and the exhibition showed their design process and how the silversmith got to the final piece. What I found the most fascinating was how each artist was given the same theme but not one of them's work was alike in any visual way.

If you go to this link you can see a few of the silversmith's works from the exhibition: http://http://www.modernsilver.com/mindfulofsilver/mindfulofsilver.htm

There were two silversmith's work that I engaged with : Lucian Taylor and Theresa Nguyen ( my next 2 blog posts will be about their work)