Well, I was prepared to hate the opening ceremony for the Olympic games which was on last night (sorry that my friends in the US had a somewhat edited version of it) but I loved the crazy Britishness of it all. There were just so many fantastic moments! My two favourites were the pogo-ing creatures during the "Pretty Vacant" section and the bit which is of most interest to metalsmiths, the lighting of the unbelievably beautiful "Cauldron" for the flame.

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Okay, I've officially given up on catching up to my 4PAM posts, so I'm going to venture forward, and hope I can make up for the missing posts as I go along. So,…

I'm running behind... again.... I'm starting to think that this state of perpetually playing catch up is my normal schedule, which means I'm not behind but rather right on time, ha!…

For the last 4 Processes a Month installment of January I catalogued the construction of this kinetic, hinged metal clay box with interchangeable tiles. It's coming in at the last minute because of some computer issues I encountered last week, fortunately all is well. Enjoy and thanks for watching.

http://crafthaus.ning.com/video/the-making-of-gallery-box…

This semester I am taking an independent study which has allowed me to further explore the medium of enamel. I have been fascinated and inspired by really beautiful drawn and painted images on enamel so I thought I would give it a try. This is just a work in progress but I am really loving the medium I am working with. I would also love some feedback on the piece itself or even tips when working with watercolor enamel.…

Finally finished the Supercolliderpiece today. Not really in my usual style, but I'm fairly pleased with the way this worked out. Off to the photographer now!

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Nice day today; the students were either busy working on their Christmas sale or they were held up by the snow, so I spent a very relaxing day chatting to them and setting stones:

One of the students said that this looked "like something to control a spaceship"!

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Disaster...

Trying to cast the last - and largest - in the series of spheres made from old sewing-machine needles, I had to use a gigantic flask which I had never used before and which cooled down too much before the full vacuum could be drawn under it, so the metal chilled and the…

The Supercollider piece is progressing apace. I managed to cast the central torus element today:

I got really fed-up cleaning it! Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this, though it still presents the problem of how I am going to get all the investment plaster out of the inside of the hollow…

On Friday, I was sent to the most annoying meeting I've ever been forced to go to. It was given by a moron, an idiot who thought that it was enough to pompously declaim his unvalidated, ill-researched opinions on things relating to "sustainability", yet was hypocritical enough to brag about his "frequent visits to Greece" and his "two weeks in the Maldives", presumably all involving flights. Well, it is nice he can afford these things by selling his services as an advisor on…

Working on my new project, the customised tattoo machine and associated jewellery pieces, "Beneath the Skin". This project involves a collaboration between me, a tattoo artist in the US, an Argentinian maker of tattoo machines and a metallurgist in Sheffield! It is going to be exhibited as part of the "Galvanize Sheffield" exhibition. 

This week, I've been converting the drawings into 3D forms by various manual and digital means. The original drawings from…