Mr Vaarwerk Did His Homework

Oh I wish I could have made it Mark Vaarwerk's Homework show at the new Gaffa gallery. It would have been great to see Mark's collection and give him some support by attending. It would have also been a treat to check out the new gallery. I will get myself to Gaffa later this year for sure. In the mean time I can always see some more of Mark's pieces when I visit him at home, because we are good friends after all.

Sometimes I think it is funny that we are such good friends. Others have also said this to me. Maybe that's because we both make jewellery largely from discarded plastics. There certainly is some similarity in our work and some crossover at times. But for the most part I think we use different materials, our aims can be quite different and so are our processes. Still, do we ever get jealous of eachother? My mind seems to have wondered to this topic for some reason. I started to answer it here but I've decided it is a bigger topic best left for the next blog post.

Having sidetracked from telling you more about Mark's Homework exhibition, I'll leave it now to Mark
himself and curator Zoe Brand to tell you the rest.

Making plastic Jewellery

I came home recently to find this book on my doorstep. There are a couple of my images used in the gallery section, which of course is very nice to see.

It was also great to see a book all about plastic and resin jewellery. I know when I started working with plastics exclusively I found it a little difficult to find information regarding techniques. Through months of research I had gathered a book on making resin jewellery, some old high school textbooks on working with plastics (mostly acrylic), a bit of info in various other books and online. But for the most part I just worked it out myself. Which was probably the best way to do it anyway. Trial and error takes you into those unexpected places. At times you want to hit your head against the wall repeatedly in frustration. At other times you want to jump for joy in the fact that you found your own way and created something truly unique.

Take a Ball of Thread

Take a ball of thread…
a jewellery project by Melinda Young
opens at Pablo Fanque tomorrow. If I was in Sydney I'd be there in a flash, for sure!

Melinda has created a really awe-inspiring collection of pink jewellery (oh so my favourite kind!) from a simple and brilliant idea. As she states at the beginning of her project, The plan is to use this entire ball of pink thread I found to make a series of new jewellery pieces .

Not only are the end result and concept fabulous, but so is the fact that Melinda has documented the entire process. Such insight into the creative process, although more common now with the proliferation of blogs/websites, can still unfortunately be hard to come by. Knowing how/why something was made adds so much to the experience of viewing/understand the work, and as importantly, the person behind the work. More of it I say!

Funny Plastic People

"The most complete creative freedom – the greatest achievement in contemporary jewellery - was the discovery of plastic.." so says Graziella Folchini Grassetto. I'm with you Graziella. Read the rest of the presentation here.

Listed below are a couple of my favourite top notch plastic jewellers. They may not only use plastic, but the use of it seems to be an important part of their practice. Plus they all have a sense of humour that seems central to what they do and to the kind of jewellery they make.

Lisa Walker

Ted Noten

Felieke van der Leest


Felieke van der Leest neckpiece, pictured above

Tamsin Howells Likes lollies Too

UK jewellery designer Tamsin Howells contacted me the other day to say she loved my work. Thank you Tamsin and right back at you. I took this opportunity to find out more about her methods.

Tamsin says she uses a lamination technique that employs resin to sandwich together two sheets of plastic (acrylic) with vintage fabrics and lolly wrappers trapped in the centre. The fabric pieces are really lovely but I do especially love the use of "sweets" wrappers, as seen in the bird series.

"I adore colour and feel by wearing a splash of colour around your neck or wrist can lift up an outfit and one’s mood", says Tamsin. I'll have to say that I agree there too!