Van Cleef & Arpels’ ad on the back cover of the February 2012 issue of Art News is the latest in a sad legacy of the haute couture jewelry design world.  The ad displays an exquisitely crafted platinum and bejeweled “zipper” necklace.  It’s an impressive piece of work, advertised to coincide with the publication’s theme of “Where Fashion Meets Art”.

Where…

What a fiendishly busy few days! I've been working hard to make my work for the exhibition in Wales recently but between that, I've been getting quite a lot of odd commissions, largely for repeats of my older work - things like three-skull rings and wolf and bear rings. I've also been working with "humble doodler", Zook again (we worked previously on "Beneath the Skin". He asked me to make some 3d silver versions of his drawing: 

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Another week and this time punctuated by a visit to my favourite Scottish city, Dundee. It is hard to put a finger on exactly what I love about Dundee but one of the essential elements is a truly dynamic and exciting arts (and crafts) scene: there is always something new going on, often encouraged by the Duncan of Jordanstone Art School. I took the train through an icy night on Friday to visit one of the gallery spaces in the art…

Nothing better than making the front pages of your hometown’s major newspaper! It only took me 15 years, but here I am featured as the Style &  Taste  cover story for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 11, 2012! Wonderful article, “Silver, gold, Lego: Precious links to the past are jeweler’s gems“ by John Petkovic – we had a long phone interview back last fall and it was definitely worth the wait. HUGE,…

Despite the best intentions of the last post, I've not posted anything for a week as I've been embarking on a commission from a customer who does not want any of the details published online until she has received the piece.

Since I last wrote, I've been asked to have a solo showcase at the Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre in Wales. I've exhibited there before - in their Re:Collect show in 2009, so it is nice to be invited back to exhibit a small collection of new works. This…

I can't believe that I've managed to get three weeks into the year without posting anything on here. It is not as if I've not been busy in the workshop, what with making a new spiky mace in silver and shibuichi:

1) A Christmas tree bauble filled with wax:

2) Hollowed out:…

I have always thought that the back of any jewelry piece is as important as the front. I always try to have something on the back of my pieces as a surprise for the wearer and also because I think it says a lot about the maker.

Most of the work I do has a detail on the back, I enjoy very much doing it.…

Off to Brighton on Friday for the festive holidays! Today I had hardly any students in, had finished the charms for the SCC show and have nothing that I can really be doing on my two big projects ("Fashion:Victim" and "Future Legend") so I picked up a nut from the old West Pier in Brighton, a beautiful Victorian pier which had a theatre at the end and which has been allowed to fall into disrepair following an arson attack by a company which didn't want it to be restored:

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I received an email from Sharon Massey earlier this week, inviting me to submit some pieces for the third "Charmed" exhibition at the SCC in Pittsburgh, to which I happily agreed. Some time ago, Bob Ebendorf and I had been talking about me making a series of charm bracelets which I started but which never got anywhere as I couldn't get over the hurdle of creating a complex piece with essentially no "narrative". (The original plan was to create 10 bracelets and 100 charms which would be sold…

I made a piece today from bits left over from Supercollider and a boar's tooth:

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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…

Having now had a couple of weeks where a combination of loads of things on my plate and general late-autumn lethargy have conspired to prevent me from making any blog entries, I'm back to it after a week in which I saw an opera featuring a depressed singing egg and created a seriously dangerous structure.

Having seen the Call for Entries on Crafthaus for the "Hot…

Hot Under the Collar: A Survey of Contemporary Necklaces

Choker, collar, lariat, torque, pendant, the necklace is one of the most diverse formats available to metalsmiths today. Whether cascading down the front, or draped down the back, the possibilities are nearly endless. The human torso provides us with one of our largest canvases, while still keeping body as site.

From comments on the classic strand…

I wanted to have this piece finished for Hallowe'en but things got in the way, so here is my Spoon Skull Cross, a bit of fun made from iron wire from a building site in Brighton, a rusted bolt, some flat ground tool steel from a derelict workshop, a silver souvenir teaspoon, silver, copper, rubies, sapphire, garnets and carnelian:

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A flying visit to Birmingham for a meeting and the opening of Terry Hunt's marvellous "All Golds" exhibition. Terry has been one of the main educators in the jewellery industry in the UK for over 40 years, teaching at the jewellery school of UCE in the city at all levels of expertise. In his way, he has taught many of the current "movers and shakers" of the industry and to celebrate his retirement - it is hard to imagine how anyone could ever replace his boundless energy and educational…

While I was in Genova, I went to see the newest contemporary jewellery gallery in the town, Te.Ta.Bu., located in a back street near the castle gate in the ancient part of the city. Run by Camilla Teglio, Barbara Taramasso and Emanuela Burlando, this gallery aims to showcase the works of the makers as well as others. 

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