Beneath The Skin

Sheffield Institute of Arts, 24^th March - 24^th April

Jivan Astfalck, Elizabeth Callinicos, Jack Cunningham,…

I have a very easy-going relationship with my students. They all know that they can look at the things on my bench, ask me questions about them, make suggestions and talk about any projects that I'm working on. They also sometimes make subtle little jokes. 

After I've completed my current project (see below), I'll be moving onto a brooch entitled "Future Legend", which will feature a dog head cast in gold. In order to make the head, I bought a plastic toy dog, which was put…

Having finished my "secret" commission, I've been able to work on a piece which came about as the result of receiving a package of presents from Dee Wilder, a marvellous artist who works predominately in polymer clay:

I've worked with Dee's pieces before (for example, the brooch "Richard III" - …

Finally finished my earring, "The Use of Ashes". I've been wanting to make this piece on this theme for myself to wear for almost 15 years and have finally done it! It didn't even take that long to make from start to finish.

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I'm sworn to secrecy on my newest project, which is a commission. That is all I can say. No photographs, no details!

In between times, however, I've been making a piece I've been meaning to make for ages: an earring on the acid-folk-psyche song, "The Jeweller" by the band, "Pearls Before Swine". This is going to be a single earring and today I managed to get quite a lot of it made:

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"Beneath the Skin" is now complete! I am not making any more pieces for the show and the last one should have had some more details added to it, but I like it so much like this that I'm stopping:

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Working on the very last of the "Beneath the Skin" pieces today. As I was given the metals, the least I can do is try to use them up!

I spent the day cutting out the stand for a bowl:

The bowl is not really practical as it has a skull in the base!

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Finished the box for the tattoo machine, "Beneath the Skin":

The plaque on top is engraved:

The box is an old one which used to contain a…

I managed to finish a few more pieces for the "Beneath the Skin" show.

First piece is a brooch:

I like this piece very much as it is the closest to the original artwork:

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Finally finished the tattoo machine for the "Beneath the Skin" exhibition in Sheffield next month! I'm so relieved at getting this main part completed and I can now concentrate on…

I am SO annoyed. I had just finished cleaning and polishing these rings:

when I managed to completely lose the one on the right with the heart. I have turned the workshop upside-down and can't find it. It is getting to the point where I would actually be quicker making another! These rings are part of my collection…

Finally got the colouring of the Japanese alloys working, so can now start on making the components of the piece. 

These hearts are made from high-purity Copper, with 25/75 Ag/Cu fused to the surface, then press-formed. The idea is that on colouring in Rokusho, the copper will turn a deep red and the shakudo will go a…

I've been on holiday for a few days, so no posts. Back to the grindstone today, playing about with these Japanese alloys. Just before I went on holiday, I was having problems with an ochre-coloured deposit on the metals and copper plating: I guessed that this was caused by iron in some way - a hazard in my workshops, where old bits of iron are as likely to be on the bench as precious metals. 

Cleaning everything up made a huge difference to the samples and I even achieved some very…

Continuing with the "Beneath the Skin" work, all that messing around with the digital scanner and the Polymer Clay models was to give me a press-forming die, of which I now have two, one with the heart at 25mm and 5.6mm deep...

The negative image into which the metal will be pressed.…

Working on my new project, the customised tattoo machine and associated jewellery pieces, "Beneath the Skin". This project involves a collaboration between me, a tattoo artist in the US, an Argentinian maker of tattoo machines and a metallurgist in Sheffield! It is going to be exhibited as part of the "Galvanize Sheffield" exhibition. 

This week, I've been converting the drawings into 3D forms by various manual and digital means. The original drawings from…

I finally finished The Lobster Quadrille, a piece I started in the spring of last year and which I never got round to setting and finishing. It was the work of a few hours' to complete it. 

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I finished the Cold Genius!

Everything: now to send it off to Goldsmiths' Hall for their craft and design competition.

The box is made from an old wooden box which held a precision lathe. I rubbed it down, waxed it and lined it.

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Work continues on the Cold Genius piece and the main "theatre" is now finished, apart from polishing and patination. All the engraving is now done:

The ice-cave in which he lives, still to be enamelled. The ceramic figure will be visible through the quartz crystal prism.

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