Back to work today and straight into preparations for the coming year, both academically - for the new and continuing students - and in terms of my own work.

The holiday was relaxing and fairly uneventful. On the back of my political fury of the last few months, I had been planning to go to Brighton's "Pride" event, something I've shunned since the early 1990s when the event ceased to be political and became no more than a corporate, money-spinning festival of…

Two posts in the space of one week - so much going on and I still have the feeling that next week's post might be a busy one too.

This week saw the opening of the Symposium that I organised…

It's that time of year again.

Life in Birmingham continues apace and if I'm being honest, I have to confess that it all still feels a bit unreal. Reality came one step closer this week as I sold my Glasgow house…

SO... it is that time of year again and the degree shows are in full-swing. Unfortunately, because of the timings of holidays, the exam board and external examiner for my own graduands, I didn't get to…

So I am not going to write about Robert Burns at all. I don't mind Robert Burns, but rather like too many things we were given in school, I have a limited tolerance for him and, as with Shakespeare, I regret the…

I think the whole arts world knew about the fire in the Glasgow School of Art, the functional art-school building by Charles Rennie Mackintosh which was SO fit for purpose in the early 1900s that it is…

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to my favourite Scottish city - Dundee - to see the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD for short) degree show. As usual, my main interest was in the…

I have finally finished my Alexander McQueen tribute piece, "Fashion:Victim" which comprises of the two spherical 'handbags' made from steel spheres which I found in a burnt-out factory in Kent some years ago. The…

It wasn't all work in Pittsburgh and in between teaching the workshops, I got a chance to socialise a bit too. Quite apart from my non-metalsmithing friends, Elizabeth Avery and Kirk Savage and their wonderfully odd family, I also managed to see Lizzy DaVita and hooked up with Glen Gardner for an evening of dinner, his workshop and an exhibition.…

The circuit of degree shows rolls on and last night was the turn of the graduates at the Glasgow School of Art  to show their stuff and unlike last year, which - though good - felt a little "flat", this was a show buzzing with ideas and energy, every bit as good as the Dundee and Edinburgh shows over the last few weeks.…

What a great weekend! Lovely weather, so I got out on my bike a lot and re-visited a site I had found some time ago, the wonderfully unhinged paintings on a house in Tollcross, Glasgow. In September 2012, it looked like this:…

It is that time of year again, when the degree shows in Scotland all kick off. As usual, the roll is started by Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of  Art & Design - DJCAD for short. Regular readers of my blog will…

Time for my teaching session, held in Hraç Arslanyan's "Mahrec Art House" workshops.

Hraç Arslanyan is an amazing jeweller, working with…

Some months ago I was contacted by Sia Corrina, the editor of a free, online magazine entitled "Serendipity" and asked if I would contribute to her "Apocalyptic Art" edition, Winter 2011. Of course, I agreed, but somewhere along the line then forgot that the article had been written, that the magazine was published and that I had work in it, along with two other Crafthaus artists, Francesca Gabrielli and…

I'll get to the robots in a moment. First of all, my class at the SCC... There isn't much to say about the class at the SCC as we weren't really making projects, more exploring techniques through making samples and finding ways of problem-solving for processes which the people in the class used. As such, I have no photographs of work to show. What I do have is a photograph of all the people involved:

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It is that time of year again... it barely seems like moment since I last shared some of the exciting things going on in the Art Schools in Scotland and the time has come to do it again, kicking off with the Glasgow School of Art show which opened last Friday. (Clicking on any of the images will take you to Flickr, where you can see larger versions.)

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