Adornment in the Form of the Written Word
I know a handmade artist called Dusty, of Inverness Studios, who is so inspired by the written word that she uses it in her pieces.
Dusty is an upcycler, she starts off with an old unwanted book, one that has, maybe, seen better days, an old tin can and some power tools and fire (as she puts it). She throws this mix into her magic hands and Hey Presto! out pops a work of art in the form of a necklace based on words.
Now this really appeals to me, as a bookworm and bibliophile (I have a vast collection of books) the thought of being able to wear a book, or rather the ‘essence of a book’ as adornment, suits me down to the ground.
I bought one of Dusty’s book necklaces recently – you can see me wearing it below. It is so gothic and Victorian in the feel of the piece and so comfortable to wear. My necklace is based on the Edgar Allen Poe book ‘The Black Cat‘. I like to think, that the words contain some hidden meaning just for me, if only I could find it.
Check out another of Dusty’s book creations, her latest one is, ‘The Haunted Miniature‘. She is also doing some further pieces based on the Manga comics.
Me wearing the book necklace.
And a close up (sitting on my ancient (and haunted) green man table – that’s another tale):
The Silver Heart Necklace Completed
Finally, I have finished the heart necklace (see Silver Heart Necklace in Progress earlier post).
To complete it, I had to finish polishing the silver heart and then attach it via 2 handmade silver jump rings to the chain (easier said than done as I had to solder those jump rings close to the beads). This meant protecting the red sea jasper beads from the heat of the soldering torch which I did by coating them in a heat insulating paste and being quick!
Anyway, here is the end result, “My heart was broken, but now it is starting to mend”:
Sterling Silver Heart Necklace: Progress
I’ve been in the process of making a new necklace called “My heart was broken, but it is beginning to mend”. I think we all have a story like that, don’t we…
Anyway, I got inspiration for this from a personal experience, but also from an old jewelry making book I found, I think it’s from the late 40’s. In it there was a really nice idea for silver links for a chain, which I liked the look of so, that was how it started.
The Chain
Each link, around 4.5 cm in length was cut from 1.5 mm sterling silver wire.
I then hammered each link to flatten each end, but leaving the middle unflattened. Once flattened, I then dimple hammered the length to give a nice Arts and Crafts effect. The links were finshed off by filing down any sharp edges and sanding over any small scratches.
Both ends of each link then were drilled to allow jump rings to connect the links together.
You can see the necklace starting to take shape in the photo above.
The Rest of the Necklace (silver heart and clasp)
I have also created a handmade clasp which has an oval jump ring in place to close up the clasp once hooked.
As you can also see from the image above, I have attached red sea jasper beads to the ends of the necklace where the silver heart will be attached.
The heart is made of PMC (which is a clay like substance containing 99.9% silver granules. You shape it, then fire it in a kiln (or use a torch). The heat processes evaporates the clay, leaving almost pure silver behind. Once out of the kiln, you have to clean it up and place it in a tumbler with steel shot to shine it up.
As I write, the heart is tumbling away, being cleaned ready for attachment.
I’ll post up the completed necklace in a day or so.
Oh, I’ve also made matching earrings – you can see a close up shot of one of them here:
I think the effect of the red sea jasper with the hammered silver has a Mackintosh feel to it – do you think so too?
Mistakes, I’ve Made a few… or How Ziggy Got Zagged
Well, I hummed and harred over whether to put a post up about my jewelry mistakes.
I asked some good people on the Handmade Artists Forum what they thought about it and they said, it just shows you are human and do make mistakes (this is very, very true!). So this is my post on How Ziggy got Zagged.
So, I thought I’d try my hand at enamelling: I love enamelled jewelry, it is like little mini paintings and I admire artists who can do it well. So, I thought, how hard can it be.
I had an idea in my head to make a pendent based on the David Bowie song Ziggy Stardust (I’m a bit of a fan you see). The pendant was to have a sshooting star theme, made of a silver base, which was to project movement upwards and then having 3 enameled stars atop it – I thought that enamelling a silver star should be pretty straight forward for a beginner at enameling. Silly, naive, me.
I started off making the silver base cut from sterling silver sheet (I am nothing, if not ambitious and hopeful).
I then cut out 3 stars of increasing size that would be soldered to the base.
I then enamelled each star separately using powered enamel which I washed out, then added Klyr Fir Gum before placing in the kiln for about 90 seconds, per layer of enamel.
At this point everything was OK. The stars looked lovely, I choose colours in hues of greens and pale blues.
I then attempted to solder the stars to the silver base. To avoid heat sink problems with soldering onto the base, I used a method of soldering whereby you prepare the piece with your solder pallions in place, and put the piece into a kiln at around 700 c for about a minute.
Trouble is when I took it out, some of the bits of enamel glass, had spurted out onto the silver base (tiny bits, but even so it was a bit rubbish looking). I toyed with the idea of saying it was ’star glitter’ but really I was kidding myself, so I had a great idea…I’d create a black sky background using black enamel – stars, dark sky perfect..you’d think. well here’s the result:
Well as you can see the ‘black sky’ effect didn’t quite have the effect I wanted. I’ll try and take a better pic later to show you just how bad it is.
So Ziggy is going to be Zagged – straight into the bin, can’t even easily recycle it – unless you know a way I can?
And God made man in his image – and woman made dolls in her image?
The one thing that human beings do well, apart from killing things, is to make things: If you like we both giveth and taketh away.
Why we make things, intrigues me. Of course the obvious reason is to trade between ourselves and the trading of objects such as jewellery, is as old as the hills.
The type of things made by human beings may have started off as tools to help them survive, for example stone tools, but the evolution of Homo sapiens from earlier ancestors, generated a species that liked to make things for other reasons, such as adornment and with a heavy emphasis on symbolism and spiritualism.
Jewellery is an obvious candidate for both adornment and symbolism. Some of the earliest known jewellery, a set of pearl beads, is postulated to have dated back to at least 75,000 years ago. This evidence is still being argued over, but even more evidence in the form of shell beads with pigmented areas, has been found in Morocco, dating back to around 82,000 years ago. What is particularly interesting about these beads is that they were found far inland and so suggest trade had occurred.
It seems that symbolism, through adornment and objectification, is something that is deep at the hearts of being a human. Symbolism allows us to show to others what we stand for and what our beliefs are. It displays status, wealth and power. No doubt it is also at the heart of our reproduction and the behaviour we use to be successful at reproducing ourselves in the form of our children.
Barbie is not a doll…
In my opinion, one of the most powerful and persistent art forms that also embodies symbolism, is the making of ‘dolls’. When I use the term ‘doll’ what I really mean is the handmade creation of an image of a human being: whether this be a literal, or a heavily stylised interpretation. Dolls encapsulate the different aspects of our humanness, our needs and our beliefs. One of the most famous dolls is the Venus of Willendorf. The Venus is around 25,000 years old and was discovered on the banks of the Danube river in Austria. The Venus is a female human which, to put it nicely, is a little chubby, chubby, however in all the rights places, as far as Neolithic humans were concerned, as the hips and breasts are overtly symbolic of reproduction. It is also worth noting that the Venus is not unique and many, many similar forms have been found all over the world.
Our obsession with symbolism in the form of dolls has continued ever since and global cultures have created gods in the images of the human form. The ancient Mayan lords depicted themselves as divine kings in elaborate sculptures or smaller jade carvings, which represented their connection between heaven and earth.
Coming back into the 21st century, this long, long tradition of the depiction of human strengths through the symbolism of dolls continues. An example of an artist working in this area is Heather who creates the most amazing dolls.
One of her dolls, called Freedom depicts the human need to be a free spirit and her choice of white as the main colour of the doll, touches on the spiritual association we have with freedom and heaven.
Another doll (my favourite) is called La Loba – Wolf Woman, she is, to me, symbolic of the power and strength of womankind and the innovation of self reliance.
One thing that I believe all handmade and hand crafted items have, is a strength and a power that is imbued into the piece by the maker. This can be seen in the presence of the pieces on the wearer, or when you hold and look into the object.
Nothing manufactured can possibly hold this kind of strength, and objects such as dolls, must be the most powerful of all of our art?
Heathers current collection of handmade dolls can be seen here:
How subliminal thoughts influence art
I recently made a necklace.
When I designed it, I must admit, I didnt have a particular influence in mind. The necklace is based on circles and I like the idea of the circle as a form made up from an infinite number of straight lines – just a nice thought, don’t you think?
So I created the necklace (took a lot of soldering) but this is the end result:
When I showed it to various people, each instantly said it reminded them of a variety of things, all along the themes of fifties/sixties sci-fi, such as Sputnik, satellites, etc. Then one person (Dragon Claw – see their shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/dragonclaw ) said it looked like orbiting planets.
I used to be an amateur astronomer (in my much younger days) and I immediately saw that this was the influence behind the art.
So, the question is, how much influence do subliminal views, thoughts, attitudes and loves, have on your art?
I left My Necklace in San Francisco
Well I didn’t actually, but its a good introduction title.
I am sitting in San Francisco International Airport, waiting for a flight back to a rather grey old blighty. I’ve been away for a few days (business) and I am itching to get back into the workshop and finish off a few of my outstanding projects, so I can move onto my Evil Eye project.
I have also been working on some less ’statement’ type jewelry – a range of bracelets made from handmade sterling silver links, in either oval or round shapes (or a mix of both) and that have semi-precious beads attached in such a manner to attach the links, the ‘manner’ being that they are sterling silver wire wrapped and the connections finished with a tight wire wrapping using fine silver wire - I’ll put an image up of them when I’m back.
I really like them because they are simple but still have a feel of my personality about them, which is one of the reasons why handmade things are so special, you get a little bit of the maker in each piece. I also kind of feel that some of the positive energy that you feel when you make special things, is pushed into the piece to make it ’shine’.
Anyway, on that note, I will finish this small post.
Aren’t These Jasper Cabochons Lovely!
I went to a bead fair in Harrogate last Sunday and I got the perfect cabochons for my range to come ‘The Cave Woman in All of Us’.
This range will be loosely based on the cave art paintings of Lascaux in France which are around 18,000 years old – here’s an example of a wonderful painting (the bloke in the picture isn’t the original artist).
The inspiration comes from the colours and the bold lines rather than just the animals and people in the paintings.
On an important side note – there is an online petition to save the Lascaux cave art as it is deteriorating – you can add your signature here: http://www.petitiononline.com/ – take a look, this is all humankinds heritage and once it has gone, it’s gone.
So, back to jewellery design. At the bead show, I found the most wonderful and extremely high quality, rock cabochons (see here for the originator: http://www.designercabochons.co.uk/ ). The cabochons are cut from the original rock into shapes that can be used for jewellery or just admiredy as they are lovely.
I bought two jasper cabochons to start off my range – here they are:
Rare Biggs Jasper
This was discovered in the 60’s at Biggs junction in Oregon, USA. The striations show up as a sort of landscape view and the colours are so reminiscent of the cave art paintings, so I intend to use this as the centre piece of a necklace:
Wild Horse Jasper
The second one, is both a great shape and again has colours reminiscent of those cave art paintings. This is known as Wild Horse Jasper (very apt) It is from Owyhee county in southern Idaho and takes its name from a famous Wild Horse mine. Very scenic. Again this will form part of the pendent of a necklace – I already have a setting for this in mind and it should be pretty spectacular.
It will probably be after the end of the year that I get round to doing this range so, watch this space…
The Hand-Made Revolution
There is a little revolution happening in the world.
Just under the radar, is a current of people choosing to buy something that is hand-made, rather than mass-produced.
Theer is a growing swell of people doing hand-made in virtually every area you can think of: if you can buy it mass produced, chances are you can get it hand-made instead.
Something to think about when you next want to buy something or reasons to buy handmade:
1. In general the item will have been carefully thought about
2. The person making the item will do so with pride – and I am convinced that the same pride and joy is effused into the hand-made article
3. It will often be unique, no-one else will have one and if not unique it will certainly have its own characteristics
4. You will have directly contributed to the continuation of a small company or individual and in turn their family will benefit
5. It’s just got all round better karma
Buy Handmade
Tools and Tribulations: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – When Good Tools Go Bad
This will (probably) be the first post in a series of many, where I review tools, from a female perspective.
I will try and balance the posts, i.e. good tools and bad tools, but I am in a bad mood today with a particular tool, so at this point in time, I am more likely to write a post on ‘when good tools turn bad’.
I know the old adage, ‘a bad workman always blames his tools’, well in this case, I’m a work woman and the tool isn’t bad, it’s just hard to use, if you have girly biceps.
The Problem
I like to make necklaces and pendants using silver circles. I need a nice clean-cut and round (not wobbly) circle that I can hammer and dome, that can be used for various pendants, etc.: the image of one of my necklaces, to the side of my blog, uses this type of silver disc.
To create the discs I use a disc cutter – just like the one from this image below:
Disc Cutter
Now don’t get me wrong. The disc’s that this cutter makes are perfect, can’t be faulted, it’s just the process to get the disc’s in the first place that is causing me problems.
This is how it works:
You sandwich the sheet metal (in my case, sterling silver sheet) in between the two parts of the disc cutter and then place the cutting bore into the hole that is the size of the disc that you want. You then take a big hammer and hit it…hard!
You have to hit it once, really hard and the disc comes falls out underneath the cutter, all nice and shiny and perfect. Except…I can’t hit it in one fell swoop. My arms are too weak and girly and I end up having to hit it several times to get the cutter to actually cut the disc out. During this time the sheet moves slightly and I end up with a disc that has several cuts in it, making it look like a crescent moon has risen in its wake – it looks a mess: straight into the scraps tin.
The only way I can currently cut these discs out is to ask a man to help, grrrr. I don’t like doing that, because then you have to depend on someone else and you can’t just get on with it yourself.
The Solution?
There MUST be a better way. There must be someone out there who can design a tool like this one, that doesnt require the brute force of an elephant to work?
Please, product engineers, take pity on a weak and feeble armed woman and design a disc cutter that works with a simple press button action (oh please…oh please)
