I've been avidly devouring a very strange and marvellous book indeed. "Out of the Woods" by one of the founders and contributors to my favourite music website, "The Quietus", is an odd melange of autobiography, social history, confessional, and psychogeography which is - mostly - beautifully-written and poetic, his writings about his…

What a week!



Kicking it all off was the annual Goldsmiths' Craft and Design Awards in the gilded splendour of…

After a four-week hiatus to let me relax and take some time to regain my strength and focus, I am back at work again. The holiday itself was uneventful, taking in the Jewellery Quarter Open Studios at the beginning…

Spring has just about got to Birmingham this week and on Wednesday night it was a pleasant - almost warm - walk to the IKON gallery for the private view of the new show of work by two…

Nicolas Estrada

Brooch: To Be or Not to Be, 2014

Silver, rose quartz, citrine, steel

5.5 x 5.5 x 1.8 cm

Photo by: Manuel Ocaña

© By the author. Read…

Join us for spring, summer and fall workshops - over 150 classes scheduled! 

Workshops are offered in clay, basketry, book arts, drawing, enamels, fiber, glass, metals, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, woodturning, woodworking and more. Instructors have been carefully…

The Aesthetic Allure of Books Without Pages

by Claire Voon

SOURCE:…

The main event this week has been completing my watch and chain for the ACJ exhibition "Sleight of Hand". The last element to be completed was the fitting of a glass to the 1838 silver watch-case which was…

Last day of October and spooky hallowe'en is here again. I've never much bothered with the festival as I'm not much of a horror fan but this year I've been paying a bit more attention and have been finding it quite funny, especially…

After that last blast of negativity in the previous post, I am back to my more usual, balanced, self!



Over the summer, Dingo and I spent a long time in the West Country, visiting Devon and Dorset and spending one…

Last night was the event of the "Scottish Style Awards" for which I had been nominated as Scotland's "Most Stylish Male". I am really glad to be able to…

I started a wonderful project last year about collecting images of brooches from the side we rarely see, the back side. It was such a wonderful experience to see how different artists approached the back look and mechanism of their brooches.

I started looking around for more pictures, and although it was not an easy task I managed to create a wonderful board on Pinterest named, of course, …

My colleague is off on paternity leave just now, leaving me holding the fort with part-time and temporary staff and my excellent technician, Fiona. A fault in the fire-alarm system in the building means that I can't cast anything, and I've not had time to work at the bench. Additionally, I just spent two weeks on holiday, so haven't much to report other than that I sent all my work off to the gallery at Cwmbran in Wales today,…

I have no idea what happens to my time. Another two-week hiatus since my last blog post, during which time I've been invited to help with writing the "definitive book on soldering for jewellers", found out that one of my pieces is featured on the cover of a new book on stone-setting, bought a new CAD/CAM mill, sold several of my show-pieces and continued to put together the collection for the show in Wales.

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