Masters of Modern Jewellery

A busy week! I spent all day in London on Thursday, first of all visiting a private breakfast view of the superb "Masters of Modern Jewellery" exhibition at Beetles + Huxley, curated by Joanna Hardy. Joanna is something of a powerhouse in the jewellery world more than you might, perhaps, imagine if your only knowledge of her is as the antiques expert on "The Antiques Roadshow". (I've previously reviewed her luxuriously-produced "Emeralds" book here.)

Beetles + Huxley is primarily a fine-art photography gallery and during the talk, Ms Hardy made a remark which I think is very important to those of us who are involved in jewellery. She said that it is important to view jewellery in an 'art gallery' as opposed to a space dedicated to jewellery display; that it changes the way in which the viewer responds to the work.

The show is amazing and I really recommend ordering a copy of the very smart catalogue from the website link above. It is so good to be able to see the work of these legends - including Tom Rucker, Jacqueline Mina (whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time at the show) and Andrew Grima - in a thoughtful presentation. I would suggest that maybe the collection deserved a bit more space in the gallery but I also understand that this may not have been possible. Additionally, the photography in the catalogue does nothing to suggest the scale of the pieces but these are inconsequential gripes about an otherwise brilliant show.

There is a video about the show here:

Off to the AGM of the ACJ after that, where we talked a lot about the coming events for 2015 - 2017, and lots of exciting things are in the offing, including a 2017 conference in Hull - as part of the City of Culture festivities - which celebrates 20 years of the founding of the ACJ.

Other business included choosing the title for our 2015 members' exhibtion, which is to be "Sleight of Hand". More on that soon.

After the meeting, we had a talk from the engaging and philosophical Simon Fraser who was talking about his "Ultra-Indigo" consultancy project.

In my own workshop, I've been finishing off Christmas (yes, already) orders and making up a few pieces of stock, including this "Jewelled Antler" bracelet:

The chain was dug up on a friend's allotment!

My first year diploma students really impressed me this week with their first-ever wax-carvings. I will confess that the initial results of wax-carving are often less-than interesting and are rarely good, so it is with some pride that I can present these pieces:

For details, click on the image.

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Comment by The Justified Sinner on November 10, 2014 at 8:54am: Well, I'm hoping to be in Chicago sometime soon!

Comment by Brigitte Martin on November 10, 2014 at 8:01am: He did not say anything about that but then again he was by himself in the booth and it was quite busy, he was talking to people all the time so I didn't want to interfere with business. He managed to squeeze in to say how much YOU like Pittsburgh though. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Good times, good memories.

Comment by The Justified Sinner on November 10, 2014 at 12:47am: His work is phenomenal. I am glad you got to speak to him. He is my collaborator for "Garnish"! I don't know if he mentioned it or not.

Comment by Brigitte Martin on November 9, 2014 at 5:18pm: Thanks for this post!!

BTW: I met your friend Jeff Zimmer at SOFA yesterday, he was manning the Scottish Craft booth - in a kilt, of course. I just had to stop and meet him. What a great guy - and his work is a dream too. (The image below is not from SOFA, I grabbed it from google images for those here unfamiliar with his work...)

Jeff Zimmer

Layers of enamelled and sandblasted glass in lightbox.