Sunday 28 February 2010

l’éducation sentimentale: Lin Cheung


l’éducation sentimentale
repertory of forms for an History of contemporary jewellery

a proposal by
Christian Alandete

With :
Lin Cheung (GB) /
Carole Deltenre (F) /
Gesine Hackenberg (NL) /
Anya Kivarkis (USA) /
Åsa Lockner (SW) /
Marc Monzó (E) /
Bettina Speckner (D)

In Flaubert’s novel, "A sentimental education, the young hero has to find his path among contradictory feelings at a time of historical changes. In the last decades, the theoretical issue of modernity and his need for change became less relevant and visual artists started to look back to the past, taking forms from a common repertory inheritated from international Avant-gardes. With the same concern, contemporary jewellers explore past history of jewellery to point out specific meanings in a new social and historical context."


photo Suzy Solidor D.R.

Extreme Beauty: Leonor Hipólito


Extreme Beauty
28.02 - 28.03.2010
Glassel School of Art, Houston, USA
Usabilidade no seu Esplendor
24.03 - 25.04.2010
Museu de São Roque, Lisboa, PT
Leonor Hipólito* & Claudia Silveira Oliveira
07.04 - 09.05.2010
Villa Bengel, Idar-Oberstein, DE

Ineke Otte: Wonderland




"Selfridges in London has selected a collection of jewellery of Ineke Otte, for the launch of the new film "Alice in Wonderland", with Johhny Depp. They have a special presentation with products which are related to the film. They present the collections of jewellery "tea for two" and necklaces "rat" of Ineke to the public during this event."


Congratulations Ineke!

By A Thread





Fellow Jeweller Angela Gleason very kindly emailed me a link to an exhibition in the US, with a similar theme to the one I am currently showing in, in Rochester. It looks like a great show. Thanks Angela.

Images from the top:

Lisa Kokin,
Panacea Plus, 2010, Self-help book spines, thread and mull, 61 x 56 inches, Courtesy of the Artist and Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, Image by Lia Roozendaal/Jagwire Design

Susan Taber
Naturaleza, 1996
Thread, constructed by machine stitching
13 x 16 x 14 inches
Image Courtesy of Photo B. Molloy

Katie Lewis
Detail of 201 Days, 2006, Thread, pencil and pins, 70 x 36 x 1.8 inches, Courtesy of the Artist

The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is pleased to present, By A Thread, an exhibition of artwork by emerging and mid-career artists who create unexpectedly nostalgic, and poetic works using thread as their primary medium.

Blog: Bijou Contemporain Jewelry

A new Jewellery Blog featuring works by Jewellers' around the globe.

Marianne kindly added some images and info about my work, including new pieces being shown at the Thread Bare.

Thanks Marianne and good luck with your blog, I look forward to following it!

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Stitch 'n Bitch: Athens




Loukia Richards organised the first Stitch 'n Bitch session to be held in Athens. Groups have been set up around the world, you can read more about it here.

Love Amulet: Loukia Richards


'The Phallic Hero' -- A Love Amulet for the Young and Shameless.
He is inspired by the Freudian diptych of Eros - Thanatos (love - death), Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Seven Phallic Poems' and Joseph Cornell's surreal universe trapped in a box.
Designed by Loukia Richards and cast at a traditional Greek family workshop, excited to try old tricks in new things. Available in silver 925, gold 14K and gold 18K.

Happy New Year



Year of the Tiger

Wednesday 10 February 2010

Thank you Paula!




Today I got an unexpected parcel from Sweden...from my good friend and fellow jeweller Paula Lindblom. She sent me a nice long letter/illustration, her computer has been out of action...so it was a good surprise to hear from her in a letter. She sent me a lovely Dala Horse from flea market in her hometown Sundsvall, found over her Christmas break...its a lovely blue colour with a mystery hole in it, perhaps for a candle?...and she also send a lockfåglar that her Dad made based on her neighbour Charlotte's design, nice to share a good idea!....luckily I was making soup today.

Thank you Paula, Mr Lindblom and Charlotte!

I remembered reading about this bird design on Paula's blog, used on a saucepan to let out steam...a great idea and I am glad that they use puns in their language too.

"My father done this lockfåglar/ call bird ( but it’s not the same funny idea in English, in Swedish it’s more like a pun… lock means cover and we also have the same name for bird that you use in hunting) to me from a sketch that I got from my neighbour Charlotte, it is a really good design. I like this little bird and it’s also very nice to use it on the saucepan to let the steam out."


A lovely surprise...thanks Paula! I have put the Dala horse in between a Kate Malone sliced fruit and a Katharine Morling birdy. So he will have company!

Paula is the person who got me interested in blogging, we met when I was researching my book. She has a great blog which shares loads of really interesting things from her work and daily life. Add it to your fav's or follow!

New Works: Joanne Haywood










These new works will be shown in Thread Bare, Rochester's Art Gallery and Craft Case from Friday onwards, for the next few months.

They are the first new works I have made using my hand dyed yarns from natural dyes and they span from April-December 2009

Thread Bare: 13 February - 25 April



The Flyer for Thread Bare. A PDF for this and the Interpretation card can be found here as a download

Rochester Art Gallery and Craft Case - Thread Bare



Thread Bare has been conceived by the gallery’s curators at Medway Council as a means of reflecting on concerns relating to “human condition and identity, social and domestic circumstances and cultural exploration through textiles”, and the works are promised as “playful and unsettling in their approach”. These are large claims and universal themes, and the required mix of play and unsettlement adds further pressure to deliver a potent and affecting exhibition.

Joanne Haywood’s work takes up the human story through pieces that reach back into the faraway history of the Thames Valley and the exposed objects that come to light through mudlarking. Taking the clay pipes that speak in their materiality of the bones and shell that also archaeologically evidence London’s history, Haywood is interested in the transitional, as seen through metal oxidisation or the juxtaposing of skeletal metal and the fleshliness of textiles.

In her Pipe Flower Neckpieces, she builds onto the historical artefact something of the living textile, reminiscent of the loss of textile artefacts to water damage and time but also indicative of the re-inventive power of threads. Like Minta’s missing brooch in Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, (in) significant objects, especially those of desire sustain and prevail, and offer themselves unexpectedly from the past for our engagement and re-visitation.

Essay by Dr Catherine Harper MA, FHEA, FRSA Head of the School of Architecture and Design, University of Brighton; UK Editor: Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture; Editorial Board: International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education.

Craig Fisher, Lucy Brown, Joanne Haywood, Judith Dwyer
13 February - 25 April 2010

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Happy Groundhog Day


"Every year the world turns its attention to our town to learn the prediction of our most famous resident, Punxsutawney Phil. At sunrise, Phil will emerge from his burrow at Gobbler's Knob, and his handlers will announce whether or not Phil has seen his shadow. If Phil sees his shadow, legend has it that we can expect six more weeks of winter weather. No shadow indicates an early spring."

Jewellery Using Textiles Techniques: Methods and Techniques


Another book in the design and make series. Textile jewellery is the third in the jewellery series, written by Sarah Kaey. The book features a chapter designed and written by me, based around the textiles technique of smocking alongside a gallery of works that link by materials or ideas.

Other Project Chapters include work by: Suzanne Smith; Liz Brown; Marjory Keay; Vicky Forrester; Helen Robertson; Lilia Breyter; Sarah Smith and Sarah Kettley. You can read more about it on the A&C Black Website


Monday 1 February 2010

Freesia & Rose




I love Freesia's, their scent in particular. I saw a bunch of orange freesia's and yellow roses and had to take them home (I paid for them first of course). They were: orange yellow and pink...a sequence of colours I always enjoy.

Contemporary Jewellery Making Techniques: A Comprehensive Guide for Jewellers and Metalsmiths


This Jewellery book has recently been published by Quarto. It covers a wide range of techniques and processes alongside examples of work from around the world. I was invited to write the design section for the publication.

You can see more information for this book on amazon and you can read more about Vannetta the author of the book on her website

Acrylic Gel Medium


Quite a few people have asked me which gel medium I used for image transfers (as seen in my book on mixed media jewellery), so I thought it might be useful to post some info here. I use the Daler Rowney acrylic gel medium Impasto Gel Medium Matt

Most brands will probably make similar recipes, I like this one, but you can also get the same medium in gloss, so might be worth experimenting a bit with different ones.

19th Legnica International Jewellery Competition minimum


Another Jewellery competition. The deadline for this one is the 5th April. Entry forms and rules can be downloaded from the website

NTJ: Jewellery Contest and exhibition

New Traditional Jewellery has been running for a few years (since 2007) and has now become a biennial event. For each contest there is a different theme, in the past "Traditional costumes and Folklore", "Symbols of Faith" and "Intimacy".

This year the theme is True Colours and the deadline is the 1st June 2010.

Jewellery Competition: Open to all

Felieke van der Leest very kindly mailed this competition out to other jewellers, so thought it would be good to pass on again, then more people can read about it and maybe enter.

You can visit the website here

More dead cute jewellery‏: TINA LILIENTHAL


Tina Lilienthall, from Germany, now lives and works in London; graduating from the RCA in 2003. She works in mixed media, including metals, plastic and silver. I am a fan of her Strawberry neckpiece.

You can see more work and info on her website

Leonor Hipólito: walking the grey area


Walking the gray area, a project I posted about a while back. Here are two images from a pair of the artists involved in the project. Interesting to see how people think in different ways and how we can learn from each other and generate new ways of working/thinking.


View Miguel Luciano&LeonorHipolito dialogue at
http://www.grayareasymposium.org/blog/category/miguel-luciano-leonor-hipolito


General view at http://www.grayareasymposium.org/blog/

Walking the Gray Area is an ongoing project curated by Valeria Vallarta Siemelink and Andrea Wagner.
Anyone can visit and comment the process or ask questions to the artists. To see the project in action you can consult the couple's list.

Gemma Draper

A space to stimulate, test and train creativity.
Somewhere to plant, grow and implement ideas.
Fertilized soil where you can grow wild.
A place to do and undo.

Current activities:
Active creators working group
Work presentations and lectures
Workshops


www.gemmadraper.com/
http://lagerminal.com/

Fabrizio Tridenti


Fabrizio Tridenti's exhibition in the German Goldsmiths' House of Hanau.

Fabrizio Tridenti

Leonor Hipólito

Fragments is a series of samples available within its conjunt for a game of self-knowledge, that might challenge the idea we conceive about what forms and binds us.

Each piece, in its dimension far from real and unproportional within the conjunt, is sometimes difficult to identify. But aren’t we confined to a matter we do not perceive and yet it dominates and conducts us?

The different pieces, looking like loose fragments of an anatomical model will gain a new context on the body of those who wear them.


www.leonorhipolito.com