This week has been taken up with the tough paperwork exercises of re-writing the whole curriculum at the School of Jewellery to make it more dynamic and flexible. We've taken the opportunity to make the whole thing more craft-based, which is…

I've not posted for a while, for which I apologise. It isn't that there has been nothing happening or that I've been too busy: more that when I've had a spare moment or two, I've not felt like making a post.

SO this will be a bit of a longer post than usual as I've been in Brighton again, visited Farnham, and loads of other things besides. I also completely forgot that there should have been two other things of note in the last post: I gave my talk on New Technology as part of the…

This week kicked off with a visit to the Birmingham Rep theatre to hear the Music Theatre Wales production of a new opera by Scottish composer, Stuart MacRae, with a libretto by popular crime-writer, Louise Welsh,…

No blog post last weekend as I didn't get home from being in the Netherlands until late on Sunday night.

The…

Just like the crappy local rag in Brighton, "The Argus", I am having a slow news week as I'm on holiday so this is going to be a short post. It has to be said, the 'headline' above is a new low in their generally laughable headlines - one…

This week kicked off with a flying visit by two wonderful jewellers from Chile, Nano Pulgar and Claudia Betencourt of WALKA Studios in Santiago.

I was introduced to them by Anastasia Young and as…

I've genuinely been run off my feet for the last couple of weeks, what with the change in modules for the students, my usual commitments as well as getting the new house ready to move into, so this is just going to be a super-fast resume of what happened this week...



First up was the last of the four "speed projects" for the BA Jewellery and Related Products at work. This week they were looking at 'Speculative Futures' and imagining the type of technology they would like to see in…

Not much to report this week. I think that everything seems to quieten down for this dark period between new year and spring. I've mostly been working on the house and getting the students through their first…

This week has been dominated by the arrival of David Poston at the School of Jewellery. a man of great intelligence, skill and charm who absolutely…

I would never have imagined in January of this year that I would end up in such a different situation from the one I was in...



January

A busy month, making up work for…

Another bonanza of a week as I returned to work on Tuesday after a long weekend in Brighton to all my students handing in their first assessment, which I then spent the week marking and writing up. (Photographs in next…

Another packed week, kicking off with the "Chrysalis" show of works-in-progress by the final-year BA students, a fascinating glimpse into what we can expect come summer 2016.

This was a particularly interesting show as it was…

This was the week that the School of Jewellery hosted the recycling-performance work, "JUNK: Rubbish To Gold" with teams of the most experimental and interesting jewellers coming in - from as far afield as Ohio and Germany - to…

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 we kick off this week with an correction and an apology. In my last blog, I credited the elegant champagne-flute holders which were used at the Fei Liu reception as having been "designed and made" by Paul…

Another busy week, starting early on with the first stirrings of the performance-making-piece "JUNK: Rubbish To Gold" by Jivan Astfalck in which…

AND back at the bench! Hooray!

I've begun to catch up with commissions and making stock work. Immediately, I'm working on a piece incorporating a small 9ct Edwardian brooch and some of the metal found on Dungeness…

The new intake of students were in this week: gemmologists, horologists, jewellers, silversmiths, CAD designers; the new HND, BA, MA starts. It was brilliant to be in the school when it is buzzing and we spent Monday avoiding…

I've started work at the School of Jewellery just as it turned 125 on Friday 18th September, 2015.

From the Birmingham Daily Post of 19th September 1890:…