Posts Tagged ‘jewellery’
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A trip report, karbunkels and more goings-on …
In this post I will relate about my recent trip down to the Scottish Central Belt – and some progress in the “karbunkel” department (please note the “k”s – this is on purpose: such my “boils” reference the Germanic and the Medieval). This one might take you a little longer to read …
Witchy branch fingers at Carbeth
The big trip seemed doomed that Saturday morning in early January – with snowfall and ice on the ground in Caithness. And indeed, per text message one of the meetings I was heading for had to be cancelled. This meeting was to be for a theatre project, which is scheduled to happen this summer. But it was hopefully one meeting of many to come…
The main reason for the journey, however, was the opportunity to take part in a workshop offered by the Cultural Enterprise Office in Glasgow called “Next Steps” – development advice for creative businesses trading three years or more. That workshop was scheduled to take place on Monday afternoon, the 10th January 2011 –and in order to make most out of the trip South, I had organised to still my creative thirst over the span of a few days.
One of the Carbeth Huts (and yet another gnarly tree)
The first station now was to be the home of the environmental artist Ruth Macdougall. Ruth had just come back from a study trip to Uganda, where she had teamed up with a local artist to collaborate on simple boat building for the community at Lake Victoria. Ruth had built a coracle and is currently working on a curach – both ancient forms of boats, which were used to travel over water and over land (carried and used as shelter). Ruth also introduced me to the Carbeth Hutters Community, her artistic history with them – and the gnarly, old, slightly ragged and enchanting landscape she and the hutters live in. The image above was taken there: twigs and branches like witches’ fingers and hairy lichen (you have read about that stuff before here – inspiring!). From Ruth, I also received a short course in filming (using her professional camera to film a quick “interview” and watch her editing it with professional software – am learning all the time!).
On Monday morning then Ruth and I headed into Glasgow on different missions, but she had a chance for a quick hello to Deirdre – they knew each other through a residency. Deirdre Nelson had kindly agreed to be my mentor within the Hi-Arts “Making Progress” project. Now, Deirdre is a very enthusiastic and inspiring person – and it was such a treat to have her look at images of my work and listen to her comments and suggestions. I filled two pages with notes and ideas to research, alsolots of h elpful and inspiring links (which have set things in motion …).
From her it was only a few steps to a friendly welcome at the workshop. Carol Sinclair led the class. I had met her and – as it turned out – the lady sitting to my right, Melanie (an architect) before at North Lands Creative Glass in Caithness. To my left sat Caroline Dear, partner artist of “Making Progress”. I found the way each of us three sitting there had dealt with the preparation exercise of “mapping” our activities, quite remarkable and unique. It had taken me more time, than I thought it would, but through the workshop it was a bit of an “eye-opener” to myself. I seem to always have a guilty conscience of not doing enough, but boy, do I do a LOT! And don’t want to give up anything (apart from cleaning the constantly dusty studio/showroom, which I obviously cannot give up). Alas, through the workshop I managed to identify a few things, which need to be changed or remedied. And without this session it would have been much harder for me to take the necessary step back in order to see those. I also found listening to other participants’ situations, problems and thought processes extremely interesting and helpful.
After the workshop I had the opportunity to get to know Caroline better – I love her almost ethereal work. And how good, that we had the chance for a one-to-one to find out, that – although our work is so different – we really are on the same wavelength. We both then went for a bite to eat with Deirdre – and I left them to talk about Caroline’s work (Deirdre is also her mentor), while I headed on to Edinburgh.
Through driving rain I made my way to glass artist Carrie Fertig’s studio. Carrie reported about her huge yearly trade fair trip to the US and glass residencies, projects and exhibitions, which she is currently involved in or planning for – some busy and talented lady, she is! Carrie also pointed me to a camera workshop near her house, where I could have my recently damaged camera looked at. Not having this essential tool working properly had started to worry me greatly. Next morning I handed them my camera for investigation – and found out that I need a new one. Thankfully the dithering had come to an end! (and I have a new one by now…)
The road back up to the Highlands was flanked by much snow on the roadside and bathed in sunlight – I arrived in Inverness for a loosely scheduled meeting with the kind Sian Jamieson to talk about – for me – pressing audience development (i.e. facebook) issues. Great, that she was able to fit me in on my way North. She managed to clear up many questions I had – and suggested some things, which I am now using for my research (notably “alerts” – great things, those are!)
Arriving back at my home in Caithness, I managed to throw out the luggage, dump paper and equipment in the boot and got to Wick and life drawing just in time…
Some trip, that was – full of experiences, enlightenment (if I may call it that), catching up, networking and new impressions!
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Ah, but now! Let’s talk about these karbunkel things! Let me set the scene: It is dark outside, the wind is howling around the wee cottage and the rain is lashing against my windows. I am warm and in good spirits. Typical. That is actually, what a lot of my work is about – the bad and ugly made into the good and beautiful. If it still has some of the uncanny in it – great! A healthy dose of humour usually does not hurt, either.
So these “big” and small objects came into being during a hot glass master class at North Lands. They came from a drawing exercise, which was looking at negative space. I am terribly interested in cavities – especially cavities at archaeological sites, normally hidden away from our sight. But I have also always been interested in scourges and diseases blighting our very existence as human beings. The karbunkels are an amalgamation of those ideas. And again, I tried to make the uncanny into something beautiful. They are only objects just now, but will become body adornment in due course. Below are ideas from my sketchbook:
Oh, and one of these karbunkels has already made it into my weird world as a real, wearable object: Intro the Lichen Slug Ring (a family member of the Lichen/Fungi Rings, the firstborn of which has not been photographed yet). The beastly creature is made from textured Sterling Silver and dark Blown Glass.
Lichen Slug Ring, February 2011
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Lichens and fungi…
Boy, Caithness got its hooks in me! I am just back from an afternoon walk along cliffs, with dramatic light plus some getting lost in micro lichen vegetation and almost “losing the plot” over dizzying heights.
This blogger is a beginner, be warned – also an “incomer” (I hail from Bavarian Germany – these people are known to fall in love with the wilds of Scotland …) – and a maker (of body adornment with precious metals, studio glass and textiles). This place has become my home quite a few years ago. And it is seeping through my work!
My main creative interest is the human body – also anthropology, decay, funeral archaeology and infectious agents – with some humour thrown in. At the moment I am developing and making work for a small exhibition within the Making Progress craft programme. The working title so far is Bones and Beasts.
Lichens are a combination of fungi and algae (or bacteria) – and fungi are intriguing beings anyway: They grow in many forms, sizes and colours, strictly are neither plant nor animal, can be parasitic (and potentially dangerous: think mould), can be living in symbiosis and/or be quite useful (bakers yeast and antibiotics spring to mind). They spread through mycelium and spores and seem to have something weird, alien and disconcerting about them – absolutely fascinating to me! I would put them into the “Beast” category…
These are components for one of the pieces I have started to make: a ring inspired by lichens and fungi.
In autumn I have made some blown glass objects for more “Beasts” to wear – at the moment these are lovingly called “carbunkles”, but I will talk about their treatment next time…
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Plannishing in Plockton
The best part of working in the Crafts Team at HI-Arts is that I get to know the work of so many great makers from throughout the Highlands and Islands.
Early on in my job we featured the work of Plockton based Jewellery Designer/Maker Gilly Langton as part of the Makers of the Month section on our website. I love Gilly’s work and have been lucky enough to get to know Gilly quite well from meeting her at Makers’ Days and through her role as a mentor in the HI-Arts Making Progress Scheme, so when Gilly sent through details of her jewellery making workshops this summer I was really keen to go and take part.The added bonus of Gilly’s workshops is that they take place in Plockton, a beautiful coastal village on the West Coast (about 2 hours from Inverness). My colleague Fiona had also signed up to come to the workshop, so we set off late on Thursday afternoon and headed west.
Plockton
After a really lovely evening in Plockton on Thursday, we woke up early on the Friday morning and had a good wander around the village. Plockton is a really friendly place, and you realise that everyone knows everyone – it turns out that the girl who ran our B& B (also called Fiona) was also coming to the course and Gilly had even signed up a recruit for the course in the pub the night before (Janie from Cromarty!).
Gilly is originally from Chorley (near Manchester) and came to Plockton about 5 years ago for a residency at Plockton High School – understandably Gilly fell in love with Plockton and made the massive decision to move from the north west of England to the north west of the Highlands. Gilly runs her studio from her house in Plockton (see recent video footage of Gilly at work: http://www.vimeo.com/12766044) , but has kept her relationship with the High School and now runs her jewellery making workshops from the CDT department of the school.
On entering the school, what struck me was how great the workshop facilities at the school seemed to be – I have to admit that I haven’t been in a large workshop like that since my days at art college in Birmingham (I studied Furniture Design), so to have access to so many fantastic tools and workbench space I was like a small child in a sweet shop.
Gilly made us all feel very at home with a lovely cup of tea and some homemade flapjacks and she explained how the day would go; she said that she would familiarise us with some of the tools we would be using and then would show us six different techniques she uses as part of her jewellery making process. Gilly also showed us a range of her own jewellery which was particularly useful, as she explained the techniques used to create them as she went along. Also a great inspiration were the jewellery design books (the type of design books I aspire to have lying about on my coffee table) which she showed us, it really opened all of our eyes to the fantastic contemporary jewellery that is being made by makers in the UK and beyond at the moment.
Gilly Langton Jewellery Workshop
We were then let loose on our own to experiment with the tools and try out some of the techniques shown to us using copper as a working material. Gilly explained that copper was a good material to start experimenting with as it is very supple and is hardier and obviously a lot less expensive than silver, so you felt you could make mistakes without worrying about wasting too much of the material.
I decided early on that I enjoyed how much you got to hammer things when making jewellery! Using a range of hammers (Jobbing, Plannishing and Hide Hammers) with a Doming block and punches, it was really interesting to see how the metal could be manipulated. I also enjoyed using the Ring Triblet to form links and ovals which could be used to form a larger structure.
It became apparent very early on how important it is to understand the make up of the material you are using and how it will react to different processes and how the design of the work almost comes from understanding these processes. I know it sounds silly, but I have always been someone who has been over dependant on a sketch book and working through my designs for things on paper, this felt like a very different way of working and I felt a little regretful that I hadn’t spent more hours at college experimenting in the workshop rather than sketching in the studio.
This was not a time for regret though, after a fantastic lunch (with the best homemade chocolate cake I’ve ever had) we were all encouraged to concentrate on one piece of work that we could finish by the end of the afternoon. Gilly had supplies of silver with her which we could purchase to work with. I have to say that by this stage everyone was so focused on what they wanted to make, that there was quite a level of excitement in the workshop. Gilly was great at coming through the group and spending time with us individually to work through our designs and the processes we would have to go through to make our pieces.
As someone who likes to wear quite large jewellery I thought I would stick to using copper and was keen to create something using lots of circles and domes as I had enjoyed making them in the morning and thought it best to stick to a couple of techniques rather than try anything too ambitious. What I hadn’t considered is how difficult soldering is!! We had been shown this by Gilly in the morning and she had made it look relatively simple – I failed to remember that Gilly has had over 15 years practice over me! Anyway, my soldering skills (or lack thereof) didn’t dampen my spirits and I was pleased to finish the day with a piece that half resembled what I had sent out to make.
The other women in the class had made a fantastic range of jewellery and had had the confidence to work in silver – out of the day a total of 6 rings, 3 necklaces, 2 bracelets and one copper creation (that’s mine) were made.
I would like to say a massive thank you to Gilly for such a great day, it really was inspiring and also thank you to the other women on the course, it was a great group of people and really good fun working alongside them all!
Gilly was kind enough to give us all a printed list of the tools and materials we would need to purchase to set up our own small workshop at home. If I knew I could master the skill that is soldering, then I might well consider converting my shed at the bottom of the garden in to a workshop and spend my weekends hammering metal to my heart’s content.
Avril Souter, July 2010
Topics
Crafts Links
- Bishoplands Educational Trust
- Craft Central
- Craft Council
- CraftScotland
- Craftspace
- Dovecot Studios
- HI-Arts Crafts Development
- HI-Arts Making Progress Mentoring Scheme
- Innovative Crafts
- Stroud International Textile Festival
- Taking Time
- www.text-isles.com