A shortish post, despite a busy week with the (almost) full compliment of staff back at the School of Jewellery and preparing for the new intake of students. I can't quite believe that it is a whole year since I started there. What a whirlwind!

I have written before of my friend, Carrie Fertig (…

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…

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…

Another busy week, this time hosting at Glasgow Kelvin College our first "Jewellery Technology Day" comprising demonstrations and visits from a variety of people connected with digital…

Just spent the weekend in Brighton, a much needed break after the week of marking last week, marking the final submissions of our degree students. The above cake was a present from the lovely…

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…

Having written over the weekend that I would post pictures of work by Lynn Cochrane, fashion graduate from Glasgow Kelvin College at her degree show last week, I completely forgot and so am…

Further to my last post, I now present some work by Stephanie Mearns, visible on the left of this shot of Andrew and Anita Neilson:

Her work uses biological…

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…

Last but not least - of course, these are my students - in the round of Scottish degree shows is the turn of North Glasgow College. We've only been offering degrees in Jewellery Design and Technology for three years, validated through Leeds University - the last time for Leeds, we have an exciting partnership with Dundee's own Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art starting next academic year - but this is the first year that I've personally felt part of the degree-show circuit, felt as if we…

So, after all the blogging of the degree shows and other peoples' students' work, it is now the time of my own non-degree students to shine. Every year, the august body, The Trades Hall of Glasgow, a marvellous philanthropic association of people who strive to preserve the craft skills in society, organise a competition between the colleges of Further Education in which the students compete to win substantial cash prizes,…

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…

Well, it is all over for another year. The work is done, the results are out and my students are off into the big bad world. Last night (Friday) was the first night of their degree show - which they shared with the BA Visual Arts students - and I have to say that I am very proud of their efforts.

For various reasons, notably the late-arrival of the all-essential bar, I've not had a chance to photograph everyones' work, so I will be posting later next week with updates of photographs…

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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