a crowded private view....

hanging

We are open!

The exhibition is now open- and we look forward to seeing you there!

Rhona McCallum

I graduated from Edinburgh College of Art’s Jewellery and Silversmithing department in 2011, and since then have undertaken a residency at the Glasgow School of Art. The work selected for this exhibition comes from my degree show collection.

I am fascinated by natural landscapes, in particular that of the west coast of Scotland. Lines and surfaces from geological forms and coastal plant life from this weather-beaten region have inspired my current collection. By transforming these details into linear compositions, I create intricate structures. Layering and repetition of straight lines allows three-dimensional structures and clusters to develop; the movement achieved highlights the wild and ever-changing environment of these coastlines.

I develop my designs through mixed-media drawing and photography, alongside material development in the workshop. I interpret textures, both natural and drawn, through processes such as reticulating the surface of the metal, and use heat to colour and tarnish brass wire. The controlled and restricted forms offer a contrast to the unpredictable nature of the surface techniques used.

Jo Pond

Jo Pond graduated with an MA distinction in Jewellery Silversmithing & Related Products, from The School of Jewellery, Birmingham in 2005. This period of study formed a major turning point. Having been making jewellery since the age of 15, trained firstly at evening classes and latterly at Berkshire and Loughborough Colleges of Art & Design, Jo established her design process and achieved a completely new and original body of work which now focuses her practice.

Jo was awarded for her Narrative Jewellery Collection, winning the 2005 BDI Industry & Genius Awards in the category of Products and Genius. Her work has been exhibited internationally, showcased at selected exhibitions such as Schmuck in Munich, the V&A Museum, London, Price Tower Arts Center, Oklahoma, Galerie Rob Koudijs, Amsterdam and Contemporary Applied Arts, London.

Born in Chiswick, London, Jo is now based in rural Staffordshire, living in a beautiful building which was formerly a convent. Alongside her practice as a studio jeweller, Jo is now employed as a full-time lecturer at The School of Jewellery. She is a member of Contemporary Applied Arts gallery and the Association for Contemporary Jewellery.

“I come from a family of ‘Ponds’ who appear to have a genetic necessity for hoarding; digging stuff up was the foundation of a passion for objects which others might not quite appreciate. Metal detector finds and loose road-side cats-eyes fashioned the beginnings of a lifetime of habitual collecting.

As a Technician I resourcefully trimmed worn ends off workshop brushes to create much shorter ‘new’ brushes. The off-cuts sat in boxes and were gradually joined by other worn and discarded brushes. To me these were beautiful, bristles or no bristles.

Utilising this drive to collect the unconventional and unwanted, coupled with an aesthetic appreciation of the details of decomposition and change, I choose to incorporate items potentially paradoxical within jewellery, to create beautiful and on occasion, confusing objects.

Employing symbolic references of form, material and technique, I dabble in the potential for wearable items to become vehicles for communication; whether through sense, nostalgia, or knowledge.”

Karin Roy Andersson

http://www.karin-roy.se/”The joy of repetition really is on me”

- Hot Chip

I am a long distance runner. The urge for repeating movements over and over again, methodically and resolutely is something that is significant for both my personality and my work. Running kilometre after kilometre or sawing up and down hour after hour. Multiplicity and recurrence attract me. The variations between the details become important creating patterns and rhythms. I am aiming to make jewellery where dynamic patterns form harmony and balance.

I am a collector always searching, always hunting. Constantly consuming, chewing, grinding. Once I have got caught in a loop of repetitions, a routine I find it very hard to stop. Misuse, mantra or mania - I identify with the repeated persistent movement and the constant grinding.

My works are self-portraits made of my latest addiction, or more correctly what remains after consuming kilograms and kilograms of it. They are traces of an unnecessary consumption; to collect and use them eases my conscience.

Rebecca Skeels

SKEELS is a growing jewellery and product design company. It was established in Cambridge in 1994 by Rebecca Skeels. Rebecca is now based in Farnham, Surrey after completing a residency and solo show at South Hill Park Arts Centre, Berkshire.

Over the past 17 years, Rebecca has worked on commissions as well as her own collections of unique hand made cufflinks and pendants to inspirational furniture and games. These are exhibited through, galleries, shops, craft shows and trade exhibitions.

In 2009 Rebecca became senior tutor for the undergraduate Three Dimensional Design and Product Design courses and is the Jewellery and Metalwork Pathway Leader at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham. Rebecca has more recently become cluster leader on the MA course at the University for the Creative Arts, working with students across Interior and Architecture, Jewellery, Glass and Ceramics specialist areas.

As a member of the Board of Directors for the Association for Contemporary Jewellery (ACJ), Rebecca encourages jewellers to network online. The Association for Contemporary Jewellery is devoted to the promotion, representation, understanding and development of contemporary jewellery.

Very recently, Rebecca became a Trustee for the New Ashgate Gallery in Farnham. The New Ashgate Gallery is a non-profit educational charity, which promotes contemporary visual arts and crafts to as wide a public as possible.

Through research and experimentation with alternative materials, Rebecca produces a number of one-off pieces to complement her existing ranges. This led to managing and running a symposium/exchange with the Jewellers and Silversmiths Network (JSN) and the Critique Collective Network in San Francisco in 2010. The JSN is a group run by its members for its members with the aim of getting to know other makers. 

Rebecca’s recent collection of bird inspired rings and pins are made from a mixture of metals, from metal clay, brass, steel and silver using a variety of processes including casting, hand building, soldering, texturing and oxidizing. The legs of the ducks, chickens and crows become individual display stands of the jewellery when not worn.

Rebecca intends to expand her recent collections with more research and experimentation, taking opportunity of new, developing and different materials and technologies. Research will also take place to develop the method in which jewellery and metalwork is taught, widening the understanding of how we learn and the knowledge of the jewellery and metalwork industry.

Luz Arias

Jewelry has always been my dream
I have always wanted to be jeweler
it is paradise and strugle
it is a mirror
where I can see
things I been trying to hide
It is a playground and a nightmare
a fight and my place in the world
jewelry can stretch a bit and be a spoon
or a crown
even I like  metal the most
it is tough  has its own rules
hard but melt opaque and
bright...
love hammering, the  profound loneliness of the dark gold
and  the clear sound of the metals.
curiosity brought me and drove me to
places of resin and wood
colors and freshness
love...
limits that open
to a meaning full
path walk
it's the place to be lost
and stay there until
some ring come and
pick me
being suspended
is also the in between
one thing is not yet there
and the other is not gone...
suspended
waiting... for the thing to happen

Natalia Macia Bove

Born in Spain and having obtained degrees in different disciplines in Spain, France and the UK, jewellery designer Natalia Macia Bove is a recently graduated MA student from Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Media and Design in London, where she graduated with Distinction. In her first exhibition at Schmuck we observe the expression of her fascination in human connections and fractal geometry using technology as a tool to transform a mundane material like nylon into jewellery pieces.

She finds in the use of modern technology a valuable new tool to democratise design in order to make it available to a wider part of the population and attempts to explore the marriage of the classic and the contemporary into a “future craft”.

Natalia’s portfolio includes work that stems from her interest in mathematics, using formulas to generate 3D forms and also a collection of pieces expressing simple narratives using hand gestures, a subject of study that has

 always been appealing to her.

“My work, and the techniques and materials I use, reflects the way I have expanded my research methods.  Within the multidisciplinary Design Suite Masters program, I have explored the expression of meaning through the interplay of hands and hand gestures, which was a shift from a focus in mathematical algorithms towards a more emotion-centered design.”

Natalia has recently moved to Qatar, in the Middle East. She is currently working on design commissions from private clients and building up a collection and is very excited to integrate new influences in her design practice.

Robert Longyear

OK. - WE’RE STANDING HERE, AN’ WE FIND OURSELVES BETWEEN OUR FALLIBLE NATURE AND A BOUYANT SPIRIT OF HOPE.

every once in a while red is drawn to red - an’ if you want something from an audience, you have to give blood to their fantasies

an’ every once in a while the whites of your eyes go pop because he was on creep and he knows he shouldn’t have been

an’ i’m not tryin’ to rob you, was jus wandering if you were about to buy groceries

hold on a minute – let me get out of this car an’ at least stand up as tall as you

i’m not even hungry, i jus need gas in that big ol’ car to pick up my babies an’ was wondering if you could cash me out if i bought your food with my EBT

an’ every once in a while, red is drawn to red like his babies are @ a deficit if they’re waiting an’ they’re hungry

an’ every once in a while red meets red an’ the whites of your eyes go pop because maybe you believe him an’ he’s in a tight spot an’ maybe just waiting is worse than waiting while hungry

hold on a minute, okay – let me get this straight, you want to follow me around this store while i pick up stuff-s for dinner – an’ you wanna swipe your card like the idea of hungry mouths to me is supposed to be business

yeah, i’ll EBT twice as much as you pay me out for

okay – we’ll keep this short an’ just enough to roll a car without rolling over a system like the idea of hungry mouths to me is supposed to be business

an’ the produce at this store is bottom rung, like lack of vitamins, like undernourished mouths is big business an’ clean up on all aisles

12 dollars an’ 81 cent – no double down – Phat Pharm an’ a trinity go triple up – here’s what’s left:

the aisles are clean an’ his babies are good now – they’re good little girls - no waiting an’ no cursing less they have to deal with those ghetto girls whose necks go pop like the whites of your eyes go pop

OK. - REMEMBER, THERE’S A BUREACRACY TO OPPOSABLE THUMBS.

OK. - THE DAYS ARE ALL WILD, FOOD IN THE STREETS AND CLEAN UP IN ALL AISLES. 

OK. - A CITY RUNNIN’ WITH ITS SCISSORS OUT WILL LEAVE YOU KINDA WEEPY…

Farrah Al-Dujaili

Farrah Al-Dujaili is a British Art Jeweller. Farrah studied a BA in Jewellery and Silversmithing at the School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University and then went on to complete a MA in Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products in 2010. After completing her studies, Farrah set up her own workshop to continue her practice. Her work has been exhibited internationally in shows including ‘Talente’ and ’25 Years of Galerie Louise Smit’. Farrah is also the recipient of the Art Jewelry Forum ‘Emerging Artist’ award and will subsequently have her work exhibited at SOFA New York and COLLECT London in 2012.

“ My design methodology revolves around the act of drawing as an intuitive and subconscious process; geometric and organic components ‘grow’ alongside each other to create visual contrasts. I work within an intuitive mix of drawing and making that crosses over and intertwines. The drawings are a starting point where compositions and forms are explored. The intuitive decision process learnt through drawing is transferred into my making practices. A section within a drawing can instigate the creation of multiple three-dimensional forms as I draw directly with the wire. Hybrid forms are created not overtly floral, but organic and playful. It is in the construction of these fragments that the layering of line and form creates the idiosyncratic detailing that appear in my drawings.

I enjoy the moment just before a piece comes together, where a combination of forms just suddenly looks right to me. The spontaneous making process requires quick, intuitive aesthetic judgements playing with angles and positioning of forms in an attempt to achieve a mixture of negative space and form. The unexpected detailing from an extra hammer mark or additional length of wire is where the excitement of the making process comes together. I attempt to keep questioning what I can change? Whether that be form, scale, dimension, thickness of wires or the amount of detail and ornamentation. The subsequent work aims to reflect the freedom of drawing within each piece. 

Melanie Codarin

Food for Thought

What are you eating and how is it produced?
Industrial farming systems are highly productive but at what cost…

The Food for Thought series is a self-directed project that aims to provoke thought about the negative implications of industrial farming processes. The notion of ‘change’ is explored visually through modified generic figurative shapes and borrows on the language of badges. On the back of the pieces are sourced quotes.

Melanie aims to create tension and a second look through the juxtaposition of mutated figures and the lightness and beauty of the materials used.

Her work is inspired by ‘graphic’ forms, natural and man-made, she modifies or even mutates the things she sees, and create new contexts for them so they take on a new life, and new perceived meanings for the wearer. She enjoy seeing the narrative organically unfold and the influence that different materials have on the new forms.

Computer technologies as well as hand drawing play a key role in Melanie's creative process, as does the use of mixed media with a particular preference for wood and its derivatives. An important part of her practice is ethically sensitive production choices and sourcing of materials.

Andrea Coderch

Andrea Coderch's pieces are part of the collection based on Heronymus Bosch's picture “The Garden of Earthly Delights”.

The author's irony is shown through one of the picture elements: a pig dressed like a nun.

These pieces are based on this part of the picture and they have been made with a mixture of valuable materials and less valuable ones.

Geraldine Nishi

Geraldine Nishi's jewellery is reduced to an essence, perhaps recognized as something known and familiar, but not quite definite. 
She drawn to food, more specifically, anything sweet. To achieve this effect, she use's concrete; a material that gives a painterly texture and a sensual quality that is reflected in desserts and confections.

no time to loose...

Following a frantic scramble to find a wonderful group of exhibitors and a venue to match- I am delighted to say we are well on our way to being ready for Schmuck 12 !!

This blog will chart the development of the exciting journey through curating and organising this soon to be fantastic exhibition...
                                        ...... so keep reading....


'suspended'
An installation of jewellery which is hanging by a thread... curated by Laura Bradshaw-Heap. 

With work from Farrah Al-Dujaili, Karin Roy Andersson, Luz Arias, Laura Bradshaw-Heap, Alice Bo-Wen Chang, Melanie Codarin White, Andrea Coderch, Joana Cunha, Michelle Kraemer, Robert Longyear, Natalia Macia Bove, Margherita de Martino Norante, rhona mccallum, Laura McGrath, Geri Nishi, Jo Pond, Rebecca Skeels, Jessica Turrell and Anna Helena Van De Pol de Deus.

Studio Gabi Green, GollierstraBe 17, 80339 Munchen
0049/(0)89/54030254
U4/U5 Schwanthalerhohe
14th-20th March 2012
11-6pm -weekdays and 10-6pm weekends-
Opening/Private View 11am Friday.


keep in touch to learn more about the jewellers taking part :)


thanks for reading!