After a four-week hiatus to let me relax and take some time to regain my strength and focus, I am back at work again. The holiday itself was uneventful, taking in the Jewellery Quarter Open Studios at the beginning…

It's that time of year again when the jewellery graduates gather up their work from the year and present it to the public. I'll start off with the show-stoppers from Horology.



Our BA Horology…

A short hiatus in posts recently which is not that there's been nothing going on, more that it hasn't been anything major and I've actually been too busy to get time together to write. SO a longer post with a lot of…

A very full week last week, kicking off with meetings at Craftspace about an exciting project which is coming up in July, about which I will report in due course, and an opportunity for my students to design some very prestigious sporting…

In a week dominated by Trump and other fascist excesses, this terrible marketing puff for - believe it or not - flats in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham struck me as desperately appropriate. On another week, I might have mused on…

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 (…

Craftspeople In Their Own Words brings together 75 stories written by 70 craftspeople telling of their lives in the studio, on the road, or at American craft shows from the 1960s to the present. 

Covering a wide range of topics, from selling leather work at the Woodstock music festival in…

It doesn't feel like three weeks since I last posted and fortunately there has been something of a lull in activities as I move house from the temporary rental into my new permanent location.



As I said a few posts back, the Earl of Bedlam is making me a new suit and the theme this time is "Mr Fox". I get real pleasure out of seeing the urban foxes which have appeared everywhere in the UK over the last 15 years or so (along with urban badgers and even deer) and I commissioned…

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…

SO... it is that time of year again and the degree shows are in full-swing. Unfortunately, because of the timings of holidays, the exam board and external examiner for my own graduands, I didn't get to…

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,…

I am the curator of a wonderful exhibition on "hidden" or Invisible Disabilities, to be held in Atlanta, Georgia in April 2015, at Mason Murer Gallery. It is sponsored by VSA, the arts for disabilities in Atlanta. Artists so far are from Canada, the U.S. and South Africa. This is going to be an amazing opportunity for artists to showcase work about physical and mental challenges they face, and that most people do not think about!

Specifications:

1) The art work MUST in some way…

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…

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 night was the event of the "Scottish Style Awards" for which I had been nominated as Scotland's "Most Stylish Male". I am really glad to be able to…