Jewellery Resonances

I was fascinated by engravings for black and white enamelled miniature cases by Jean Toutin who worked from 1618 to 1640. The designs executed in 1619 were surrounded by other stories, for example, the design for a jewel placed on the back of a tortoise was above the engraving of two men wrestling and one applauding.

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There seems to be no connection between the images except in one of the engravings where you can clearly see an enameller’s workshop with wooden floor grid to allow the gold filings to drop through to be swept up at the end of the day. Also the kiln with bellows and the master looking in to see how the firing was going with the apprentice behind, bellows under his arm ready to fan the flames when required.

I am a student every Tuesday taking part in the History of Jewellery Course run by Dr.Beatriz Chadour and the curators in the jewellery and metal department. It is a rare experience to be taken through the developments in jewellery since early times and to be able to handle rare pieces from the collection.

This week we were taken to see the print department’s collection of designs for jewellery. It is so amazing to see these things at first hand, original drawings by Lalique and Josef Hoffman and a rather surprisingly poor drawing of a necklace by C.R.Ashbee.

Madeleine from the Crafts Council has responded to the challenge with an elegant marsh grass necklace.

I gave some of the packaging material to young woman I met from Lithuania who aspires to go to Art College to study jewellery. She arrived in the studio with some lovely pieces she had made from the throwaway packaging.

Over the weekend I also had open studio sessions and was delighted by visits from jewellers of note who also came to make a charm, Susan May, Daphne Krinos and Alison Flanders made lovely charms for the Chain of Talent as did a jewellery student from Sheffield called Emma who came all the way to take part. We had lots of children of all ages who loved drawing on the little circles of paper I have and as a result I have mounted a low-level cupboard door exhibition of little children’s drawings.

The idea for the chain came out of a question I was asked at the interview for the residency, ‘What would you do with 4000 parents and children coming to the museum over a weekend?’ I responded with ‘Make a big chain and wrap it round the V&A’. This concept was put through the V&A education planning committees and developed into a very long charm bracelet to which visitors would make and attach a charm based on an object of their choice from the collection.

Queen Victoria’s lips with the metal stamp and embossed disc. The marble bust of Victoria was by German sculptor Flatters in 1843.
In order to facilitate the use of metal in the project I made metal stamps of different images from the collection, for example Queen Victoria’s lips, and eyes from various sculptures. These stamps were then hammered into thin aluminium discs and the discs used to make charms. Twisting of coloured wires was also included so there was an element of learning new skills in the project. A number of parents became hooked on the metal techniques and made some great things, I spoke to a woman wearing a rather wonderful necklace of wire, she said her husband had spent hours making it in the art studio, so not only charms were made in the chain of talent experience. I made up boards of samples of ways of embossing and punching metal to show some of the things that could be done. I was able to have two of my wonderful graduates to help over the weekend, Natalie Ryde looked after the sheet metal section and Andrew Lamb was responsible for the wire section and he also made lovely examples of wire twisting to inspire the visitors.

I made this charm for the chain of Talent based on a silhouette of Antonio Canova’s sculpture head of a dancer. I gave her metal embellishments with punched images to suggest what she might be thinking and a CD necklace. The image is taken looking through the charm to the window of the studio.

For this charm, I used hands from V&A sculptures. I named it “The Credit Crunch”. When I made it, I had in mind the text carved over the door from the V&A garden to the Henry Cole Wing “ Better to get wisdom than gold”.

After weeks of discussion and preparation the Chain of Talent project finally took off.

V&A’s Heather Whitely managed to sort out all the health and safety issues and put up the chain with some help.

I had a surprise visit from fellow blogger Sue Lawty who was a textile artist resident at the V&A. We talked at ninety miles an hour about our residency experiences and it was very good to meet her.

Stephen Bottomley organised a visit to my studio of the Edinburgh College of Art Jewellery and Silversmithing Department and we also rushed round the V&A jewellery gallery.  With my partner in mischief Susan Cross, I led some of the students through the lovely oval pond in the John Madjeski Garden to see the blue grey carved stone in the centre, it was the perfect day for a paddle!

I visited the Knit and Stitch Show at Alexandra Palace and found the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef had migrated there. It is a huge show with suppliers showing all sorts of materials. I wanted to see Alexandra Palace close up having passed it so many times on the train.  It was built in 1873 and despite being burned down twice, is London’s only surviving example of a Victorian People’s Palace where in 1936 the world’s first television transmission took place.

I enjoyed both weeks of Craft Council organised Origin and the bonus for me was meeting lots of Edinburgh graduates who were exhibiting their work. I advertised the event on the floor of the studio during open studio sessions exaggerating the perspective of the floor space.