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]

Art Jewellery Challenge, day 5

Facebook Art Jewellery Challenge was started by Donna Greenberg in the hope of capturing a diversity of what is happening around the world of art jewellery. I was nominated by Claire O’Halloran (thank you lovely!) so for 5 days I will show some of my jewellery and each day I will also nominate another artist to show us their jewellery.
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Day Five : ‘Show Off’ (2012) ; made for the ‘Art of the Cuff’ exhibition at Lord Coconut; some of the silver/paper weaving I have a particular affinity to
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I wish I could have nominated so many people, though many were already nominated and some aren’t even on FB (I know!). #‎ArtJewelleryChallenge‬

‘Showoff’; image not to be reproduced without permission

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‘Art of the Cuff‘ exhibition, September 2012 [all posts]

• 23rd June 2012 / Lately
• 8th July 2012 / Another sneak peek
• 17th September 2012 / Later this month
• 26th September 2012 / ‘Art of the Cuff‘ opens this week

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