That time …

Remember that time …

… that time when I was happily making woven earrings

the good old days [image not to be reproduced without author permission]

This group was for an exhibition at Studio 20/17 … back in the day.

Ah memories…

Repair -v- remake

You may know the dread … when you receive an email (or call) from a gallery you sell jewellery through, that a piece has come in for ‘repair’. Horrid scary word: repair.

I received just this request recently from the most excellent Lord Coconut … a client had brought in a pair of my Onyx cufflinks which had broken after only a few wears.

The horror. As this pair was in my first collection for the gallery, I had visions of my soldering to be to blame. I had visions of all my cufflinks needing to be repaired (an overreaction, but it happened).

Weirdly, it seems that the failure was actually the base of the (manufactured) bezel. Though it must be said that it was a relief that it wasn’t my soldering.

In fact, the part of the bezel base that failed was where I had soldered (seemingly magnificently) the cufflink stirrup fitting to the bottom. See in the below photograph – just completely ripped the metal away (and strangely without buckling the metal back at all); that missing little square of metal is solidly adhered to the stirrup on the now-unattached cufflink fitting.

back of broken bezel … after I’d unset the weave and perspex (hence the mangled edge)

Totally unpredictable, and in fact I cannot even conceive that the base could be torn away like this. The metal is thin (I use manufactured bezels for these pieces; it’s the significant compromise I made/agreed to keep to a low customer-end price-point) … but still.

So anyway … I haven’t made cufflinks for over two years. I have no studio. And effectively, due to the construction of these pieces, it is a full remake, there’s no ‘repair’ about it.

You can imagine my total relief when my fabulous old studio buddy said I could pop in and use her bench and tools and things. I love awesome people.

And it all went smoothly. Well, when I say smoothly, but I did have to remake both cufflinks, as the bezel on the unbroken cufflink was higher than any bezels I had at hand – see how much wider the old, unbroken (right), bezel setting is in the image below, compared to the new (left) one. In fact, you can also see the thinness of the bezel fold on the right side of the old cufflink, that thing was at risk of failure if knocked in the wrong spot …

new on left, old on right … note different bezel set thicknesses … boo

… so the client has a whole new set of sassy cufflinks.

Hoorah! I wish him many more years of enjoyment and wearing these.

new cufflinks (with original weave)

And then more…

Following from yesterday :

1. full metal weaving
2. scroll/poster hanging
3. cut and framed
4. free play and pinned
   ..
   
5. free play, pinned and adorned
   for the ‘Winter Brooches‘ exhibition at Studio 20/17 in 2010; I don’t consider these pieces very successful actually, though I quite like the bar brooch at the bottom of the image
   

   Time: group

   … the ‘Quotes’ group for that exhibition were better in my eyes, as they’re less ponderous and more whimsical

   

   Quotes

6. long weave neckpieces
   for ‘Winter Neckpieces‘ exhibition at Studio 20/17 in 2011; these I love!
   

   For William

   

   For Caroline

7. gem and bezel set
   for ‘Oh Opal!‘ at Redox Gallery (and then Studio 20/17) in 2012; this was the start of a series of experiments with bezel setting; these, being the first experiment, didn’t have perspex on the top … that was to change for future work (to make them more durable)
   

   ‘Oh Opal!’ group

   …which I then extended in the ‘My Australia’ exhibition in 2013

   

   My Australia group

8. simple bezel set
   for ‘The Love of Coffee‘ at Studio 20/17 in 2012
   

   Coffee group

   then for ‘Deck the Walls‘ at Studio 20/17 in 2012; I think they tired of my weaving (and that they didn’t sell; it’s labour intensive and therefore not inexpensive), so this was the last collection of work for this lovely gallery

   

   Summer group

   then cufflinks for Lord Coconut; including a platinum commission

   

   Platinum Commission

   … again though, the bezel setting is similar to the cut-and-frame work; I’m still not quite content with how it seems to be trapping the material, constraining it, making it ‘less’ somehow; pretty clearly I haven’t yet figured out what is actually my problem with it!

I wonder what will happen next.

[no photographs in this post to be reproduced without explicit permission of the author]

And then…

It seems I have a penchant for tracing things back to their origin … you know when a conversation has veered off on some kind of tangent, after we’ve exhausted that little escapade I then like to track back to how we got there.

So, I have a need to see how my weaving developed … and in the process hopefully uncover some hidden tangents that perhaps I could explore further.

After the initial weaving tests I posted about previously, I then tried out :

1. full metal weaving
   RMIT Yr1 project; not terribly successful, and I didn’t continue with it
   

   necklace; RMIT Yr1

2. scroll / poster hanging
   RMIT Yr1 project; oh dear, look at the kinky silk thread, how embarrassment! (blame first year keenness to get the photograph taken, and naivety in not knowing how to get the folds out); I may experiment with this format again
   

   scroll pendant; RMIT Yr1

3. cut and framed
   RMIT Yr1 project; I love this pendant; however the only thing that didn’t quite sit well with me with this format is that the weave is cut to a frame … somehow it made it just a disembodied material, instead of a whole; I’m unlikely to do this again (though, never say never)
   

   Machinery project; RMIT Yr1

4. free play and pinned
   RMIT Yr2 project; this was fun, I experimented a lot in this project with colour and widths and introducing new threads in the weave and taking them away … just joy; and this is where I left the weaving for a few years, I didn’t use it again during the remainder of my degree
   

   black fancy ring; RMIT Yr2

   …though I did return to it for the ‘Feast‘ exhibition at Studio 20/17 in 2009

   

   Nana’s Trifle Recipe

More tomorrow … this has turned out to be a longer trip down memory lane than I expected.

[no photographs in this post to be reproduced without explicit permission of the author]