Thursday, September 13, 2007

Just something beautiful

but at a stretch, I'm sure it can be related to jewellery.

Western_Penn_Falling_Water.JPG

Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water (go see it bigger on my flickr site)

And over here, Cristobal Vila has created a beautiful short digital movie tour of the house, including it's construction.

Swoon


(found via Design Sponge)

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Shameless self-promotion

Doggetts brochure page 1


K.W.DOGGETT Fine Paper have put together a publication to promote their envirocare range of recycled paper. It was designed by David Lancashire Design and features the work of a number of artists working with recycled materials. Including me!

Doggetts brochure pages 2-3

That's me on the left, opposite my mate Robbie Rowlands (who also happens to be SGG's hubby - for those of you who are Garage Sailor readers.

It also features the work of Emma Davies

Doggetts brochure page 6

(I'm diggin' that wombat, Emma!)

and Nicholas Jones

Doggetts brochure page 7


and includes work by Stephen Gallagher, Mark Vaarwerk and Simone LeAmon

Doggetts brochure page 5


and I'm on the last page too.

Doggetts brochure page 8

Shameless
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

creeeeaaaak....

That's the sound of my rusty blogging fingers. Hopefully the hibernation is over. It's the thought of all the catch up that is so daunting but the last couple of weeks from my trip were some of the most interesting so I want to share them with you. Starting with the departure from medieval Tallinn for the vineyards of Tuscany....

For those of you who don't know about it, the SNAGnet email list is a great way to find out about things of interest for jewellers in the United States. Occasionally things get sent out that are relevant for those of us outside the US - such as the calls for images for the Lark Books "500 ..." series of books - but mostly I just glance at the emails briefly before deleting them. That was until I found one that read..."Italian Chasing & Repousse` workshop in Tuscany, June 2007".

Why wouldn't you?

the view from the farmhouse
the view from the back of the farm house.

crostini
entree from lunch on day one

pizza napolitana
home made pizzas from lunch on the last day

the padrone's drop
the padrone's drop

6 days of instruction in Repousse and chasing, accomodation in a farmhouse in the countryside which is a fifteen minute walk through the olive groves to the studio each day, full breakfast and 3 courses at lunch and dinner home cooked using ingredients fresh from the farm. As I said, why wouldn't you?

The instruction was given by Davide Bigazzi.

Davide Bigazzi.JPG

Davide grew up in Florence and he and his wife, Elisa, divide their time between their studio and gallery in California and their house and workshop in Pian Di Sco'.

Now, repousse is one of those techniques that I somehow managed to dodge at university. I'm sure instruction was given but I somehow managed to get through without trying it. So it was all new to me.

Bigazzi workshop.JPG

the workshop.


filling the pitch bowl.JPG

Preparing the pitch bowl


repousse tools.JPG

Our tools


The first exercise was getting used to holding the tools so we used a liner to create this pattern.

exercise 1 complete.JPG


After mastering that we got to work on something more complicated...

the template.JPG

This is my effort after repousse and prior to chasing...

repousse finished, time to start chasing

And finished

exercise 2 finished.JPG

not bad for a first timer.

And here we all are, showing off our achievements.

all finished.JPG

(L-R) Bill and his serpent dish, Norma (another beginner like me) and her exercise 2 and neckpiece and earrings made from exercise 1, Davide and Elisa, Me and Roy and his two belt buckles.

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