Pin

This funny iphone pic is the only record of this vaguely botanical gold pin I made for a friend's Mum.
Slivers and granules, fused together.

The See?

Just came across Stefan Marx. Reminded me of something;

 I guess its a coincidence, the typography is almost exact...

So I do like some of his posters, naturally.

;-)

Native Gold

Working with native gold today... great fun.

Native gold is just as it comes out of the ground... wholemeal, so-to-speak, not refined.

It has slight impurities, and is about 22-23k. (remember?)

Over the last few weeks I've been working mainly with brass- which, as a material is bristling with good points.... but gold, native gold- is truly delicious to work with; malleable, resplendent, weighty...

It is as if it just wants to turn into a wedding ring, doing this by itself...

Above, the ring is as yet unjoined, and still bespeckled- soon to be whole and glowing.

———•———

Stay Warm

Stay warm, Northern Hemisphericalés!

Me, I'm down here in Oz having a popsicle...

What does Jewellery Do?

A pretty common sentiment is that jewellery is decorative as opposed to functional.

I'm not sure when this perceived split between 'functional' and 'decorative' came about- but High Modernists, like Adolf Loos who said "ornament is crime" and other bombast,  kind of canonised the idea. (Such a Loos-er!)

Which is pretty funny because inevitably, there came to be such a thing as 'Modernist jewellery'- which, I suppose, is un-ornamented ornament?

(my brain just short-circuited)

Ed Weiner 1947

Anyway, decoration and ornament is functionial. 

What? No it isnt, you are saying- its decorative.

Well, ask yourself, what does jewellery do? What is it for?

If you come up with any answer to that, (and there are many)- then this is the function of jewellery. It can be a social sign; of status or wealth (yawn), it can show what we belong to, what our values are. But more complex and hard to define is the role that it can play in our self-perception and self-esteem.

The following 'lipstick story' is an extreme example of this; and I'm quoting it here to draw a similarity in function between lipstick and jewellery- both of which we might often catagorise as non-essential, or even frivolous.

*warning distressing holocaust subject matter ahead*

Extract from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO, who was among
the first British soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. He notes the arrival in the camp of a very large quantity of lipstick:

I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post-mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.

Granted, this is an extreme instance of deprivation and suffering, but even so, it shows us that decoration is far more useful to us than we might realise. 

So, think about your jewellery.

What does it do? 

Sometimes it is mute and useless, lets admit that.

So, what would you like it to do?

Talk to me about this.

Bangle

Sunrise Bangle!

Here

Gold Afloat

Sometimes the gold floats

suprisingly

 I picture little rafts of gold

 on the turbulent sea 

of this speckled

 cup

shelf

Kitchen Conversation

David: Hey, you know what I think is great?
Alice: Oh! I was just about to say; "hey you know what I think is great?"!
David: You go first.
Alice: ....our dishwashing system!
David: I was going to say "The Beatles"

Test

Gold Sunrise

So... I made a 22k gold version of the Sunrise ring. I think it would make a beautiful wedding ring.

Here's some of the process. It has been made in a slightly different manner to the brass version.
I completely forged it from a lump of gold- that is, the shape and the thickness of the ring were made by hammering alone, rather than by sawing or filing. There is a small amount of copper in 22k- that's why it sometimes goes black under high temperatures. The copper rises to the surface and oxidises. I simply soak it in warm citric acid, which dissolves this fine layer, and then gold gleams through again!

And then I fused* the ends into a band. So there was very little lemel* and no flux* fumes.

It takes a little longer to hammer it out this way, and the result is more rustic, but in a good way.

*sorry for the jargon:
Fused means to join the parts by melting the surfaces together (not the usual method of joining).
Lemel is precious metal dust, or filings (this sounds like it might be a yiddish word (?) can anyone help with the etymology?)
Flux (Latin for flow) is a substance that aids the flow of molten metals.

Bangle Calligraphy

Custom version of Ulno bangle; iron and 22k gold

Yes You May

Eyes Ring is now available in The Golden Smith Shop

About time too!