Calendar: April 2013

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Blog roundup

A quick little skip around the interwebs:

• Bethany Linton bemoans spam (oh how I relate) but does share a beautiful new object
• Claire McArdle shares some amazing pieces
• oh my good lordy, in lust with David Neale’s cufflinks
• Jennifer Martin has shared some new images of older work, I especially like the Sea Twine ring
• The Needle Files highlights that 1st April is the deadline for applications for Artist in Residence at Birmingham Jewellery School (for anyone planning on popping over to Europe)
• naturally I still love reading Katherine Bowman’s blog, especially her recent ‘inspiration’ post
• Katherine Wheeler makes some interesting observations about the work in ‘Containment‘
• enjoying Kim Victoria Wearne’s opal explorations
• Lucy James says ‘think less, do more’ … I like this a whole lot
• if you’re not already regularly reading Mel Miller, add it to your list; after reading her post about getting whiter backgrounds in images, I will need to do some more investigation as this is something I’d like to improve in my photos

There are lots of lovely writings and images on many blogs; see my Links page for more.
I wish I could write about everyone, but that would take me days and days!

Herbert Hofmann awards at Schmuck 2013

It’s a little late, and you’re likely to know this already …
The winners of the Herbert Hofmann Award at Schmuck 2013 were announced on 9th March 2013.

• Robert Baines of Australia
  ‘Parrot’ – that´s the title of one of the works by Robert Baines. This is not the only piece of jewellery in which this Australian designer makes use of animal motifs. In his round and oval brooches Robert Baines plays with the depiction of animals ranging from serpents to teddy bears. In a humorous and ironic way, commented the jury, he hints at the forms of historic jewellery. Indeed, history is his point of departure for creating an expressive style of jewellery that is superbly executed and entirely his own.
  
  

  image from Gallery Loupe facebook page; click on image for original source

• Fumiki Taguchi of Japan
  The works of Fumiki Taguchi of Japan are reminiscent of medals and decorative marks of distinction – but only at first glance. According to the jury, Taguchi´s brooches inventively confront the cliché in Japan that the value of a work of jewellery is often based on the size and the quality of the gems. Fascinated by the forms of historic jewellery and medals, he turns away from the traditional employment of precious stones, creating instead a trompe l’oeil effect of diamonds in silver. The piece called ‘Expression of White’, for example, imitates the luminance of precious stones, confounding the eye. Taguchi´s very different approach certainly appealed to the jury.
• Helina Lehtinen of Finland
  The group of works by Helena Lehtinen of Finland consists of seven different pendants. The work with the title ‘Family’, a composition of simple, reduced forms such as bars and disks, has the character of a still life in which each part relates to the others. What stands out, too, is the quality of the craftsmanship. The jury were attracted to the “clear austerity of the individual form” and the “composition of the group in different materials and delicate colours”.

The above text is from the Handwerk & Design website announcement.

For more images, see this post by GioielloContemporaneo blog.
Also see this post by Bijou Contemporian blog.
And also this post by Amber.

RMIT Year 3: graduate exhibition

Our final year exhibition was called ‘Out of the Basement‘. I love this title.

For those unfamiliar with RMIT G&S, our rooms were in the basement of building 2 – so this was a wonderful turn of phrase, and I’m still incredibly fond of it.

We’d decided to use the image from the previous year’s graduating exhibition book, with a slight twist. We were keen to develop a series, and hoped that following years may continue – a kind of motif for RMIT G&S. Happily they did for at least two more years after this.

book cover for exhibition ‘Out of the Basement’

We had a great deal of difficulty in securing a location for our exhibition – a tip for any graduating class, start sorting this at the end of second year or the beginning of third year at the latest, seriously. We eventually agreed to ‘renovate’ an unused building across the grass courtyard outside building 2, called ‘The Cottage’. Apparently at one stage it was the space for G&S postgraduate students, but had fell into serious neglect.

Man, did that take some work. Though to be fair, a great deal of it was undertaken by our fabulous lecturer and technician. As it turns out, the university was so impressed and suddenly ‘remembered’ the space, that they then undertook to properly renovate it the following year.

I exhibited a group from my ‘Quilted Fragments‘ collection, and the ‘Mapping the Self‘ group. And my essay ‘Stealing the Mona Lisa‘ was also published in the exhibition book – so I’m officially a published author.

Strangely, it seems that I didn’t take an photographs … though I cannot believe that! So I can only assume I have misplaced the photo files somewhere. That makes me very sad. I cannot even find a copy of the exhibition invitation. Any of my RMIT alumni with an invite, please do send me a scanned copy.

I’m glad to have found Fitzroyalty’s post, which includes some images of the exhibition – the second image, reproduced below, is my work (erm and yes, the bottom one is of unphotogenic me and the beautiful Lucy). Thank you Brian!

image by Brian Ward, Fitzroyalty; reproduced here under Creative Commons; click on image for original source

I do have such intense memories of this exhibition, and the preparation for it (the auction, the book, the space) … ah, memories.

Graduates were (alphabetic by first name):

• Claire O’Halloran [website; artist profile]
• Danielle Lott
• Emma Sher
• Jamie Andersson
• Jenna Wilson
• Julia Storey [website; artist profile]
• Kara Breadmore [artist profile coming soon]
• Karen Thompson (me)
• Kat Goodwin
• Lucy (nee Blackmore) Hearn [blog, P+K; artist profile]
• Michelle Taylor [website; artist profile]
• Nicole Polentas [artist profile]

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This is my last post in my series from my RMIT years. I’m happy to have all the projects (at least partially) documented here. Though it is a little sad that I’ve finished talking about them already.

… see more projects from RMIT Year 1 here …
… see more projects from RMIT Year 2 here …
… see more projects from RMIT Year 3 here …

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ps. As I was doing a little internet research for the exhibition, to see if anyone else had written about it, I found that the National Library of Australia‘s copy was ‘missing’. So I sent them an email asking if I could send them another copy for their collection – you know, doing my bit – and I’m pleased to say they accepted my offer. I love sharing the love!

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