Aaaaaaargh, so it's been an age since I last wrote and even longer since I posted. Things got a bit mad but it's over now. Post Mortem time. The last piece to receive individual treatment was the cigarette holder, piece 4 and there are now 7 pieces. Sadly, the last piece was a:
" Foolhardy, Underestimated, Complicated, Kinetically- Unmanageable Problem" and shan't be discussed at any great length to avoid further disappointments and to minimise the attraction of high ledges. The previous two came out ok, quite pleased with the ring, fondly dubbed "The Face-Hugger" or some other biological term that needn't be discussed in too much detail...


 The other bangle (yes, I did another one after swearing up and down that they were horrible and evil and all manner of other adjectives) came out quite well. Much playing with surfaces on that one and and exploration into sweat soldering which was not as bad as it could have been, resulted in a fairly cool product.

After losing a chunk of my finger to the vicious pair that is an ingot and a manual roller, I moved onto getting the rest of my work together. Since August, trying to work things out on CAD- my feelings towards this are: Had I been able to take the time to learn the program and play with it, I would not have had problems. However, in retrospect seeing how much time (I'm talking 200+ hours here) I have spent, fruitlessly banging my head against a wall, I should have forgone the CAD and concentrated on the work that I can do at the standard that is required. After handing it all in, I still have a bitter taste in my mouth, thinking about the hours vs the result. The standards to get in are that one must have completed one's undergrad- 3 years of study. My Rhino skills are comparable to that of a first year. In that respect, I should have stuck to my strengths and produced the quantity and quality of work that I knew was expected of me, instead of flogging the dead Rhino.

 Sadness over things I can't fix aside, the year is over. A more trying and defining year could not have been engineered. In the time since I started this year, in February, I have learnt a huge amount and seen the possibilities for future endeavours that previously, hadn't even crossed my mind. I hope this is not my last body of work such as this, I would certainly love to carry on, but this is it for now. Research and streamlining of concepts will have to keep me busy until then. who knows, now that the pressure is off, I might even be able to get the hang of Rhino.

 These are the finished pieces. All seven of them, though the last one will not be included in the final exhibition.

Now that the earrings are finished, what to do with the next piece? My decision to make a cigarette holder has been mildly alarming to some, greeted with reactions ranging from outright indignation at making "smoking paraphernalia" to total blank on what a cigarette holder even is. Other people aside, it was going to be rather a challenge as it needed to be a complex enough instrument with enough detail to be striking without being busy.

Thus I decided to use blonde maple as the core, and silver for the outer shell. The original design was only going to be 15 cm long but by the end of it, the thing was closer to 20cm and my feeling at that stage was "Sod it, the longer, the better..." So work began first on the carving of a maple "straw", a conical needle 15cm long, 8 mm wide at the base and 4mm wide at the point. This was cut square and then sanded (by hand) down to an even round. It would have been faster to use a lathe, but this happened > with attempt # 1 so power tools were left to the experts at that point. Once I had a cone of maple that was sufficiently round, smooth and pretty,  cut it in half and hollowed out a channel in order for the smoke to pass from the end where the cigarette is to the smoker, 20 cm away. Cutting it in half was a miserable affair. Using a jeweller's saw to cut through this finicky piece of wood led to much irritation and high blood pressure, being a delicate material and rather pale, there was much faffing with keeping it clean and making sure the hitherto virginal blonde maple didn't snap.

Once that was completed, I set about making the outer silver shell. This was going to consist of 3 parts and a 4th accent. Part 1 was the mouth piece which was to be a tapered tube to match  the profile of the wood for a seamless silhouette. The surface treatment that was destined to bedeck this piece was going to have to be applied first, not usually the case but the nature of the application was such that it wouldn't work otherwise. After scoring the lines and whacking away with the beading tool, the pattern was done on a flat piece of silver that was then cut to size and bent into a tapered tube. This was also an exercise in anger management as it required a very slender and gradual taper, for which most tools were far from suitable. Improvised mandrels out of the back of my scribe and even my soldering pick to keep it straight, combined with fun and games with the draw plate to get the damn thing to taper, eventually allowed for a suitable mouth piece.

Step 2 was the detail of the organic papyrus effect that seem to become the signature of this body of work (to my dismay, but what's to do?) on a second tapered tube and treat it in a way that I had not yet done and made boring. Carving and manipulating of these forms proved fairly exhilarating, to use the term generously, and the desired effect was achieved through the use of some delightfully sharp tools, namely cutting discs, 1/0 saw blades and some evil looking burrs. Once that was complete, a lip had to be carved into the edge to allow the mouth piece to fit onto the second sleeve and then be soldered into place.

The top of the thing where the cigarette would go was a conical shape with a "sunburst" motif cut out of it. this had to be done in the pitch bowl as the taper on this was not straight but quite severely curved and sinuous. After using the ball punch to achieve the right curves, the frets were cut out and cleaned up leaving a the desired motif behind. This was then fitted with a ring on the inside which was in turn, carved into segments to create a circle of teeth that would hold the cigarette in place. After all of these aspects had been completed, it was time to assemble everything.

 I had planned to keep the grain and colour of the would as a soft contrast to the darkness of the bangle and sharp edges of the earring, but after fluting the maple to allow for the wire detail, the grain was pretty invisible and the colour was (horror of horrors) beige. That not being allowed any where near my work, at all, ever, was quickly rectified with some utterly useless "gel stain" of nondescript brand and less descript point to its existence. Nasty stuff, that had to be removed and good old, gloss black enamel was used instead. Finished result being this.

It has been a while since my last post but in that time I do have a new piece, or technically two since it a pair of earrings. I am going to break with tradition and say very little and just upload the pics and if you have any questions at all, just post a comment.

My hand is made of some high-density, inert bloody rock. Or Glass. Or something that is not conducive to drawing at speed. Day 6 of supposed "Vacation" and I have a case of cabin fever so acute that I could happily drive my car on nought but fumes and wishes to the North Pole and camp there for a while. Every idea in the universe is scratching at my mental door but my poor pathetic hand simply can't keep up. Half finished sketches that don't actually resemble anything are starting to take up too much space and the eraser might have to make and appearance.

The aim, of course, is to produce good stuff and lots of it. Enough to show that damn process with which I need to reconcile myself. At the moment, the process can bite me. Idea after idea comes barking up my tree but by the time I get half of it down on paper, that idea is long gone and the next one is half way up the trunk and into the lower branches. (Sort of a refined degree of procrastination, I'd say? Being able to put off work because you are too busy working...) The funny thing, is that this is the perfect example of how I should have been careful what I wished for. I was so worried that I wouldn't have any ideas that I didn't think about the focus it takes to bring each idea into a workable design that I can run with and eventually take to the bench. Having sweet Felicity Arkwright is one thing but too much of a good thing  is bad etc. The best work it would seem, comes when there are ideas, but not so many of them that each new idea becomes a distraction, with enough meat to get one intrigued enough to work on it and refine it into a plan with a viable execution that will result in something awesome.

The opposite is also true. When one is stuck on one single solitary thing for too long, it becomes poisonous. Whether it's the design, the figuring out or the manufacture, too many hours fighting with one piece/design is likely to drive one totally nuts. At the risk of sounding  disgustingly trite, each piece is sort of like a road trip. It begins with an idea. A possible destination. One looks at the map, figures out how far away it is, where in that town, city, village whatever, one wants to go. Then a route is planned, how is one going to get there exactly? What pit stops are going to be made on the way? And then one's equipment is checked, how is the car? How much fuel will be needed? Then one actually has to get moving. Planning one's route on paper is great, but there are always going to be "detours" that require solutions.  ALL of this is required to get there in one piece. With design and manufacture, the same can be said for each step of the beloved process from vision to product. If one plans to make one piece and it is estimated to be done in 2 weeks, spending forever on it is like getting lost on the way somewhere. It is as frustrating and tiring and expensive. Luckily with jewellery, a lot of the time you can just melt the mess and start over (not so with a car, you get lost, you find a GPS) and no one is any the wiser. Well, except the client. Melting metal sadly can not rewind time.

This is the reason my last piece was such a colossal headache. I had no map and half a tank when I started and that just got worse and worse. This shall NEVER NEVER BLOODY EVER happen again. The ideas are here, there and everywhere but now I need that amazing gift of concentration. To be able to just focus on one of them and then the next one in the kind of serial monogamy that I really thought I would be better at...
Then I get on with the manufacture of things after I have a cornucopia of new designs from which to choose.

 Plan? Yes I think so. Now, where is that road map...?

I guess one of the burning topics in my brain at the moment is this: What is the frikking point of making this stuff? It can't feed you when you're hungry, it can't keep you warm if you're cold. It can't save your life and the lives of people you love, it can't bring us peace in the war-zones. It can't fix something when it's broken. It's expensive, inanimate and doesn't do anything besides be its shiny self. Why bother breaking my hands  on something that is little more than a pricey paperweight? Why spend 3 years of my life getting a piece of paper that says I can make this stuff?

There are people I know who are lawyers and doctors and economists and political analysts and accountants and speech therapists and, and, and, and the list goes on. I see them occasionally and I must admit, it's a bit of an odd situation. There still seems to be this bullshit idea that working with one's hands is somehow less good than crunching numbers or whatever else it is that they do. This is not only a thoroughly ridiculous notion but also somewhat annoying in its specific brand of how ridiculous it is. What annoys me is the insinuation that because one works with one's hands, one's brain is not up to scratch. This is utter tosh. Maybe this isn't true for everyone who works with their hands but the reason I appreciate it so much is because it leaves my mind free to think of other things a lot of the time. While my hands are busy with something with which they are familiar, the rest of the world is still open to queries and curiosity. Maybe this just means I have the concentration span of a coked up kitten but I like to think that it allows one a degree of perspective. By virtue of the fact that my nose is not stuck to a key board all day (I can't touch type..evidently.) I get to see things I would otherwise have missed.

The world around us is vast and varied and what a tragedy it would be if I saw nought besides my bench peg? (It's useful to be sure, but it is an unprepossessing thing...) To my great pleasure, design is something that requires investigation and proficiency in a great many things but it also allows one the freedom to indulge one's curiosity and explore the realms of possibility and their limits. If I were truly honest, I would have to admit that nothing I have thus far come across, could keep my attention all day everyday for the rest of my days. The beauty of producing something that came from your mind is that it is a multitude of process and talents that allow that to happen. Besides all the research and drawing that goes into a "final" design, there is all the problem solving and method-figuring that goes into it too. Not just the actual time at the bench. When one is holding a product of one's own mind in one's own hands, there is a unique feeling of understanding. You have turned a thought, a transient and ephemeral thing into a tangible, enduring object. My personal aim when I make something is for it to be beautiful. I like beautiful things. I wish there were more of them. So I like to think of new beautiful things and make them a reality . That is a fucking privilege. (That language is my own choice and not affiliated with any institutions or entities besides myself.) And, in addition to that privilege, I get to let my mind wander and explore other dimensions while  I am creating things. What more could I want? Maybe I won't mint it, maybe I won't be famous. Seriously? Who gives a damn? It's not like I have nothing to do.

In a very short time, a great many things have been thrown into perspective. This life is full of ugliness and even if no one gives a shit about what you do, if you can bring a small amount of beauty to your world, then do it. Seriously. Everyone else can get stuffed.

 So... The bloody thing is finally finished and I think I can safely say that I hate it. Don't get me wrong, I think it is pretty enough and I am at peace with the design aesthetic but I loathe its physical manifestation with the burning passion of a dying star. Two month's work and the bloody thing looks like something one could buy at a flea market stall in Chinatown. It does not remotely resemble eight weeks worth of work and considering it is almost one third of my metal allowance for the year it really should look a little more like a third of my year's work.

After having struggled from the beginning with it, trying to build the damn thing on Rhino (failing horribly at it too, despite expert help) and then even struggling to get a decent ingot that would roll out into enough metal to make two strips wide enough, thick enough and long enough to go round the wrist and not cut off the hand. The Thing, being two layers and and really heavy, ended up being a monster undertaking. First step was piercing out all the different patterns on the top layer of silver and getting them rounded and shaped and polished. Now, I can type that in three words but it was a process and a thoroughly rubbish process at that. I lost focus completely and started seeing it in my dreams and nightmares and not being able to concentrate on the accursed thing when actually at the bench. Needless to say, that took way longer than it should have and only after a truly staggering amount of faffing did it finally start to look like something. Once that was done, it was time to make the inner sleeve. Now, having made the outer sleeve in two parts, the original plan was to do the inner sleeve in one. This was not to be. Two halves it was and an ugly solder joint to keep it all together. By soldering the two halves together, this allowed me to make it round on the mandrel without it going skew.

Once it was circular, it was time to cut through one of the joints and put in the hinge. Using the tension of the stressed metal to hold the tubes in place having cut a groove into the side of the tube in which the edge of the plate will sit, they could then be soldered with out fear of them moving. They soldered eventually. After much compensating by heating the huge hunk of silver first to average out the times at which each component would reach flow-temperature, I had a hinge. This hinge was great. Even if I do say so myself. Sadly, I screwed it up with flying colours not a week later by tearing one of the joints out and trying to put it back together, it went skew and I had to take out the hinge and do it again. The problem now being that I had actually already put in the clasp  and now that lovely tension that was there the first time was now gone and this had nothing to hold the tubes in place.

More about that in a sec, the clasp was a debacle in its own right, after having repoussèed a very ornate 3-D version of the pattern that was used, in order to make the clasp a feature, it was blatantly obvious that it was a foul-up and that it was going to be too flimsy to hold such a large piece of jewellery together. Thus a new clasp had to be devised and one that would actually hold the huge thing together, without being a hideous mess. Fun times. So, a huge box clasp was made that would be it's own nightmare eventually as getting the damn thing to click became increasingly irritating.

Eventually, true to form, the hateful thing would click and then refuse to open again. The outside edge of my left thumb is still sore from trying to rip the thing open when it had decided that it's activities for the day were over. To my disgust, the thing was skew and that was why it was being so bloody recalcitrant and this meant fixing. Sadly, my "fixing" was more of a screw-up than an attempt to make anything work and the thing ended up going so pear-shaped that it could have sat in a fruit bowl with no one noticing. So. A new hinge. No tension. Bollocks. It was at this moment that the expert Idea-Fairy suggested that I rivet on a hinge. That solution was short lived and although it would fit in with the aesthetic, it gave it a feel of hardened industrial experience that I was not actually aiming for. Either way, the hinge was on, the clasp was in a mood to behave and now to put the whole thing together.

 Tracing out the outlines to allow the light to come through and a hint of flesh through the 100+grams of metal was going to be an Undertaking. With a capital "U". Either way, after marking, and cutting and getting it done, I could finally sort out the surface treatment (a voyage of discovery and pretty colours) and then attach the fret work. After nearly two dozen rivets and heaven knows how many curse words and sleepless nights, the thing was done.

Personal feelings of frustration and misery aside, I have had good feedback on some respects but to be entirely honest I am just really glad that it's behind me for now. Today was mid- year hand in and I can say that it was a bitter sweet relief to be able to just forget about the nightmare and stick it in a big brown envelope and sign it over to someone else. Maybe it will give them nightmares too. One never knows. Being two pieces behind according to my deadlines, thanks to the Hell-Manacle doesn't fill me with any joy either, so even though all the work thus far has been handed in, I'm still not free to go and drown myself in pillows and duvets. That is only in a week's time. Work on the next piece is already under-way and frankly, I'm just relived that it doesn't go on one's arm. The next plan is earrings, some heart-stopping chandeliers with delicate piercing and movement... See how that goes.