Today was the last full day in the workshop before I shut for just over two weeks. I'll be in for the morning tomorrow, the workshop festive breakfast, the "Secret Santa" and then heading off to…

I've been in the workshop for two whole days now, finishing up my "sautoir/parure" which imagines the jewellery which Chanel (probably with the help of Fulco Verdura) would have…

What a week! There was a bank-holiday here on Monday, so it has been quick and packed and suddenly I find it is Thursday evening, nearly the weekend already.



Continuing with finishing off projects, I have completed my last "Tank" bracelet, this one more in my usual style and called "The Spoils Of War":…

I was so excited about the "Tank" bracelet that I made in a minimal style last week that I have started to make three more, two in the ultra-minimal style of the first, using only silver and one large…

What a few weeks! Ever since Madelyn Smoak reminded me that some years ago - 2009 - I had started to make a set of Chimæric cutlery, I've been working furiously to finish all the work which, over the years, has been started and left incomplete. I am determined that there will be no unfinished work by Christmas!



There were a few projects which I knew about, having put them aside to work on commissions or exhibition work…

The new edition of Metalsmith, the annual "Exhibition in Print" is fantastic. Susan Cohn curates "As Seen By Others: Photography As Strategy", an exhibition which I didn't enter as I didn't really think that it would be very interesting, nor did I think that it applied to my work. Now I am kicking myself for being so short-sighted, especially after the day I have just spent in…

One of my students made my day today by giving me a load of old silversmithing hammers which she had bought as part of a job-lot of tools from a workshop which was closing down!

Other than that, I've…

Since returning from Istanbul, it has been non-stop in the workshop, preparing work for orders and making some new pieces too. I've sidelined a number of works-in-progress in order to get on with more pressing issues, so there are no updates on my Chanel-inspired piece or my tribute to Alexander McQueen, though I have progressed apace with my first foray into electronics in jewellery, "14th Century Nightlife" which I hope to finish finally this coming week after it sitting on my bench for…

Waa!

My wonderful, indispensible, reliable, cheerful, friendly, unflappable workshop technician, Fiona, is leaving on Thursday. She's found a better-paid job with more promotional prospects and she'll be superb. The students will all miss her and they arranged a lunch for her today, which was great fun.…

The crazy Easter Holiday is over, back from Istanbul, Brighton and the Bowie exhibition at the V&A - quite wonderful, well worth seeing if you are a Bowie fan, probably best avoided if you are not - and back into the workshop. I've been there for a week now, but it has been so hectic that it feels like I've never been away.



My first morning back, I had agreed to help the Physical Education department to train their new personal trainers, so I was sweating buckets on a…

People familiar with my work may be surprised to learn that I use CAD (Rhino, primarily) as a design tool and that quite often, elements of my work are made using CAM processes, such as 3D milling of wax which is then cast in precious metals. My own approach to these technologies is not unique and while I don’t use them as a primary method of production, there are many makers who do – Janet Huddie,…

Just back to a cloudy, damp, icy cold day in Glasgow, having boarded the plane from San Francisco at 18 degrees C and brilliant sun. The air there was clear, here it is fugged with tobacco smoke. Everyone looks miserable. I look miserable. I have to get to work before 4pm for a meeting with the college Prinicpal at which he told us about financial cuts to the education sector. Not a great return from what was an amazing four days on the East Coast of the USA...

I am not really sure…

Further to yesterday's post, I now have the professional photographs of the codpiece, taken by Simon Murphy: 

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First of all, a belated "happy new year" to my colleagues and friends on Crafthaus. I returned from my festive break to a 'flu which completely knocked me for six, to the point that I was in bed and unable to move... feverish, coughing, weak and aching. Horrible, in short. 

2013 has already started off to be busy. First of all I had a quick-fire commission to make a ring "with fish that have a bit of life about them, something in blues and greens" but which had to be…

Finished my decoration for the tree in Goldsmiths' Hall in London, "Black Christmas - A Punk Star for Poly Styrene":

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The weather has turned and everything seems to be starting again. Over the last week - another week since my last post - I've completed a few things: some smaller "nut" rings, set with stones:

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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…

Just back from a long weekend in Brighton.

And back into the workshop for more on Fashion:Victim. Both the ball elements are nearly ready for development into finished pieces. The hinges are completely on one and the other has the main structural elements for the hinge in place - should be hinged…