Calendar: January 2013

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RMIT Year 3, Semester 1, Silversmithing

Third year, first semester, Silversmithing: Scale

The objective was “to build a (one) or a series of larger object/s that engages with the notion of scale“.

My immediate thought was maps. I love maps. Especially contour maps.
And what are maps without scale, if not a representation of scale, yes?

The first page of my visual diary has the phrase: “flattening the earth“.
I find it so Interesting that I came to the idea so quickly.
I decided to make a three-layer representation of three contours of the head of the Murray River, in the Kosciusko National Park.

image not to be reproduced without permission

It’s A3 size; the layers are stainless steel(2500m), aluminium (2000m) and monel (1500m).

detail; image not to be reproduced without permission

Part of the project’s objectives was to make a connection with professional manufacturing processes – I used software (the name of which I cannot remember now – maybe something like Rhino?) to transfer my pencil contour maps into a file that I then forwarded to a laser cutters. So yes, the metal is laser cut … the metal sheet is so large, the process would have been very unlikely to have been cut by hand.

detail; image not to be reproduced without permission

In retrospect I don’t like how I secured these layers together; I improved the technique on a future project (to be written about soon).

… last post in this series: RMIT Year 3, Semester 1, Jewellery #5 …
… see more projects from RMIT Year 3 here …

Metal price update

My last update was only two months ago – but let’s see what’s been going on with metal prices.

As at 27th December 2012:

1. Gold price in US$ for last 12 months

as at 27th December 2012; click on image for original source

2. Gold price in A$ for last 12 months : looks like a good time to buy perhaps?? Though don’t take my word for it, I cannot predict the future!

as at 27th December 2012; click on image for original source

3. Silver price in US$ for last 12 months

as at 27th December 2012; click on image for original source

Quite interesting.

Movie jewellery

This topic popped into my mind today – jewellery that is central to the plot a movie. There are three I think of immediately.

1. Lord of the Rings – the malevolent ‘One Ring‘ to rule them all; I’m pretty sure most people know about this movie and how the ring is essentially the focal point of the entire series.
I considered including an image of the ring from the film, but I prefer this image of the original book covers designed by Tolkien.

original book cover designs (from Wiki)

2. Moulin Rouge! – that incredible necklace. It’s certainly not as critical as the other movies mentioned here, but it is an important plot point. The necklace is apparently the most expensive piece jewellery ever created for film. Australian jeweller Stefano Canturi “crafted the ornate necklace, made with 1308 diamonds and weighing a whopping 134 carats, over 12 weeks …” (from here) and reputed to be worth over A$2m. See the Canturi site for some more.

click on image for original source

3. Titanic – the ‘Heart of the Ocean‘ necklace is the reason for the treasure-hunting ‘present’ part of the film and central to the ‘past’ section too. “London-based jewelers Asprey & Garrard used cubic zirconias set in white gold to create the … prop in the film. …  After the film’s success, Asprey & Garrard were commissioned to create an authentic Heart of the Ocean necklace using the original design.” (wiki).
If you haven’t seen the end of the movie, then look away now … but to me, this is the worst ending of a film EVER! The insipid ‘groan of effort’ she makes as she turfs the neckpiece overboard is ridiculous … this ending generates such fury inside me… it’s a waste … and yes, it’s only a movie.

click on image for original source

Any others?