I have no idea what happens to my time. Another two-week hiatus since my last blog post, during which time I've been invited to help with writing the "definitive book on soldering for jewellers", found out that one of my pieces is featured on the cover of a new book on stone-setting, bought a new CAD/CAM mill, sold several of my show-pieces and continued to put together the collection for the show in Wales.

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Original silver metal clay, 99.9% pure fine silver, just doesn't have the density or strength to survive as fine piercing work in the context of everyday wear and tear...  at least not in my opinion. Last December Mitsubishi Materials released the much anticipated PMC Sterling Silver Clay, to the excitement of the metal clay community. I decided to put this new material to the test by creating a pretty traditional ring you most often see casted, the pierced knot work Claddagh. The main…

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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The Craftcast™ "I Love Tools"event coming up this Wednesday got me thinking about my other beloved metal clay tools, particularly of the homemade variety.

Hands down, my…

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…

For the last 4 Processes a Month installment of January I catalogued the construction of this kinetic, hinged metal clay box with interchangeable tiles. It's coming in at the last minute because of some computer issues I encountered last week, fortunately all is well. Enjoy and thanks for watching.

http://crafthaus.ning.com/video/the-making-of-gallery-box…

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:…

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…

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…

It's been a week where I've not been able to proceed as I am waiting for other people to do things, thus Fashion:Victim is waiting for a piece of jet to be carved and Future Legend is waiting for some fresh acrylic enamels to be delivered. Instead of working on those, I've spent the last few days dusting off half-completed projects and finishing them, largely to restock my Etsy shop.

Some of the completed pieces:

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