It is that time again when the School kicks off and the eager new-starts arrive. We've just completed our "Welcome Week" in which we get the new first-year students into the way of the School of Jewellery.  As happened last year,…

Well, it's Friday and I'm home in Bearwood, Birmingham, my new home. I suppose I should feel a bit unsettled, maybe even a bit down, but I don't. From the moment I turned up at the School of Jewellery on Monday to wishing my new…

Last night was the opening of Jo Garner's amazing conception for a jewellery exhibition, "Bring Back The Dead" which only runs until Sunday night in the Whitespace Gallery in Edinburgh so…

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.…

After the stint at the detention centre, it was time to return to the SCC to work with a group of young people on the "Artist and Kids" programme. This programme is well established within the SCC and I taught on it last year, which was great fun. One of last year's students even signed up to take my main adults' workshop…

Sad to be leaving Pittsburgh.

As you can see, I had another night with Brigitte and we went to the Pittsburgh institution, Sarris, where we had the most gigantic banana splits I've ever seen. Delicious! I'm not…

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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Or, as Will - above - would tell you, Yes You Can Wear That!

Last weekend, I spent a brilliant two days with some young peope at the Society for Contemporary Crafts in Pittsburgh running a workshop looking at creativity, oblique ways of looking at every day objects and the creation of jewellery from those objects. The…

Although it is almost a week since the event - I've been travelling and am now in Pittsburgh - I really should write up an exciting event I attended on Monday last week in London, "Cut In Clerkenwell" which is an exhibition at Craft Central by the Hand Engravers' Association in the UK, a most worthy body who have a highly talented and esteemed membership - including…