Kicked off from the end of the last post by jumping on a train to Glasgow to go and hear the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra perform three symphonies by Gloria Coates. I've been enamoured of Coates' work since reading an article about her in The Wire…

...and I'm back at work.



Summer kicked off with a new car:

Yes. I bought a 2-seater Smart Car! It is SO good. We were all over the country this summer and unlike the old car, the…

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…

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…

A year has passed since the 2014 Handmade By Machines show at…

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…

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…

This last couple of months has been absolutely unbearable for someone who enjoys sharing the progress of works online. First came the Caledonian Sleeper cufflink commission, then came my work with "The…

I remember hearing an article on Radio 4's "All in the Mind" programme about how the definitions of mental illness were changing due to the re-writing of a single book which is generally used to define all mental illnesses. A psychiatrist who disagreed with the new definitions pointed out,



"most people in the west do not consider themselves to be fundamentally happy... because the majority of the population do not consider themselves to be happy, we could say that anyone…

... I find February to be by far the cruellest month and the raw, icy blasts this year have not done anything to make me change my mind.

Lots of odd things to report on since my last post, including a box of "gingerbread gimps"…

So I am not going to write about Robert Burns at all. I don't mind Robert Burns, but rather like too many things we were given in school, I have a limited tolerance for him and, as with Shakespeare, I regret the…

A busy week in the run up to the festive season.



Kicked off with the pleasing completion of a watch-chain for my friend and colleague,…

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…

What a week! Not only have we been finishing off with the students for the year - and sometimes for ever, really - but I've been doing my best to help Karen Dicken to get the "Handmade By Machines" exhibition and…

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…

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…

As many readers know (if you can call my small but dedicated readers "many"!) we've been running a degree programme within Glasgow Kelvin College - née: North Glasgow College - for some four…

It is getting on for the season of Degree Shows in Scotland again and it was with some interest that I went along to the exhibtion at "The Lighthouse" in…