‘Intelligent Trouble’ with Helen Carnac, David Gates, David Clarke and Lin Cheung at Contemporary Applied Arts, 2 Percy Street, London, W1T 1DD
February 18th – March 20th 2010
Papaver Argentum (silver Poppy)
The show will remain in the store window until 4pm, Wednesday 11th November 2009. It has been overwhelmingly positive in many ways and a huge thank you to everyone that made it on those rainy Saturdays and especially if you bought a brooch. I’m still calculating but approximately £350 will be donated to The Poppy Appeal. Because of store owner Terry’s enthusiasm and goodwill, the display actually remained in the window for 2 full weeks Instead of it popping-up 3 weekends as originally planned. Thank you too for the kind and touching messages some of you left for me.
Oslo HotWeek 22-25 September 2009
www.oslohotweek.wordpress.com/about/
A week of discovery, lectures, making, talking and workshops around the theme of ‘The Box’
Organised by Manuel Vilhena and Heidi Sand of the Metalwork and Jewellery department at The Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
The Tourist
With Love From Oslo
Reasons for wearing jewellery in Oslo
A selection of postcards found in my PO BOX (with thanks!)
Great News! Central Jewellery Ltd on Clerkenwell Road are going to show the project in their windows over three weekends and Cookson Precious Metals Ltd are sponsoring a special gold ‘Cookson Poppy’ brooch.
Central Jewellery Ltd is a small, traditional jewellery store and it would never have occurred to me to ask them had I not noticed that their windows are emptied of jewellery every evening, at weekends and during holidays. When the jewellery is removed, left in place is a wonderful black, imitation velvet backdrop; a little kitsch and too good not to do something with. I approached them a month ago with a vague idea of using their windows in some way and they agreed! I can’t exhibit real items for obvious security reasons, instead the display is entirely paper based – cut and formed by hand. Do come along and take a look, especially on Saturday 24th October between 11 – 4 pm when the store will be open and all brooches will be for sale. Wear a brooch to remember and wear for peace. Profits from sales will go to The Poppy Appeal.
Papaver Argentum Pop-Up Exhibition
In the windows of
Central Jewellery Ltd, 115 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BY (Next door to Magma Books) tel: +44(0) 207 405 2789
Viewing on the following weekends only:
24th & 25th October, 31st October & 1st November and 7th & 8th November.
Saturday 24th October
For one day only, a special reception from 11 – 4 pm. Come along and ‘window shop’ – all brooches will be for sale.
Finest quality hand-embroidered silver polish cloths. Look after your silver.
I have visited the V&A Museum hundreds of times and each time I am there, I like to look at and touch the walls on the Exhibition Road entrance to the building. An obsessive compulsive tick it may well be but there is a method to my madness. At first glance it looks like the walls are in dire need of repair until you come across a carved stone that reads: The damage to these walls is the result of enemy bombing during the blitz of the second world war 1939-1945 and is left as a memorial to the enduring values of this great museum in a time of conflict. The shrapnel damage on the side of this building never fails to move me. More poignant still, is the decision taken to leave these marks as a lasting memorial of troubled times.
I’m not a ‘political animal’, staunchly for or against anything without proper reasoning – be it my own band or borrowed – but I am against war and conflict of any kind. I also don’t have any personal connections to the Second World War, for me and it is true of many others of my age group, WW ll is a learned history and its relevance to contemporary life depends on how much I care to remember or seek to find out.
I see these ‘wounds’ in a different way, a way that can remind us of the devastation caused from any form of war and conflict: domestic , personal and otherwise. So, without really knowing what the outcomes would be, I have taken some polymer clay impressions of these marks and then cast them into silver and bronze. Strangely, they do look vaguely ‘floral’ and almost Poppy like, hence the working title of Papaver Argentum. It needs a little more thought and tweaking but they have the potential to be worn as an alternative poppy: a generic symbol of peace. Look out for this project in the month of November 2009, I’m currently looking for a suitable space to show it.
Imitation ‘pearls’ made from the pearlescent plastic used to package beauty products.
A blind search for perfection. One jeweller, one blindfold, one piercing saw, one chance to cut a perfect circle from a sheet of silver, once a day.
