Direction of travel, Ring 1

This is one of my Inspired by Heritage pieces.  It is a ring and is called 'Direction of Travel' and based on ideas about Captain Scoresby Junior.  He was captain of a whaling ship and did many experiments relating to magnetism with the aim of improving ships compasses.  This is the same Captain Scoresby who did the beautiful drawings of snowflakes that I used for inspiration for earlier work.

This ring is also trying to capture ideas about essentials of life and finding the way home again.  It has a tiny working compass embedded in resin together with bits of red thread.  The compass did originally say 'water proof' but I sanded the 'proof' bit away just leaving the words water and compass before I embedded it.  The compass actually shows up more clearly in this photograph than it does really.

Jewellery exhibition preparation

I am beginning to put together the information for the jewellery exhibition at Whitby Museum that opens on 30th March.  It will be the first time I have ever had to organise anything on this scale so at the moment I feel as though there is a huge amount to do.  I have selected most of the objects from the museum collection that will form the basis of the exhibition and have done some of the research.  It will have a number of themes or threads running through it and will showcase artefacts mainly from the jet, ethnographic and social history collections.  There will be a few pieces made by me as part of my residency.  I estimate that I will have to design and produce approximately 40 A2 information panels and the ones I have done so far seem a bit word heavy!

It will have a section on the use of different materials including at least one of these beautiful woven or plaited Victorian hair bracelets

Silver ring

Today I have made a silver ring from a bit of wire that was already shaped into a spiral and a few bits of wire with balled up ends, joined onto another piece of round wire to make the ring shank.  I am really enjoying this ring making challenge but at some point will have to start making some to sell!

I have started another with a deep cell for resin but have put it to one side to send off for hallmarking.  Today's ring can go off for hallmarking too, I usually have work hallmarked before I finish it and almost always before I enamel it - although it is possible to have vulnerable pieces laser marked.

More rings

Three rings in three consecutive days.  I began with the opals that have been lying in a box in my workbench for a few years.  I bought the opal in matrix at a trade fair about 5 years ago and decided to pair it with a small opal triplet which was in the same box.  Then I realised I had become interested in the bezel settings again.  I used to make bezel settings all the time but haven't done this for a while either.  The teardrop textured piece of the second ring is made in art clay silver and was in a box of bits on my bench.  I made it when I was showing a student how to make a mould.  It was from a plastic button.  The round bezel is then filled with resin and gold leaf.  The third ring I have used another bit of art clay silver that was lying in my bits box and made this double bezel.  In the shallow one I have used tinted resin and in the larger deeper bezel I have used clear resin and tiny chopped up bits of red thread.  I am really enjoying making bezels so will have to do some more soon.

Ugthorpe hoard

Today I have been to a brilliant talk at the museum by Roger Dalladay.  He talked about the Ugthorpe hoard; a collection of coins found some time ago and eventually acquired by the museum.  He began by explaining a bit about the Roman monetary system.  He then showed pictures of the coins together with pictures of statue heads of the Emperors and explained the imagery in a really clear and entertaining way, putting all the Roman Emperors into context.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable talk and I will have to have a closer look at some of those coins now!

That big faux bone ring

Here is another view of one of the rings I posted yesterday.  I don't really like the finished thing but it has been  an interesting exercise in working out how to construct and assemble it.  First I roughly cut the circle in the faux bone.  I then measured it on a ring mandrel and used that as my 'size' for the art clay silver ring.  I rolled out the strip for the ring band and made the ring with the texture on the inside (it has text inside the band) and set it aside to dry.  I then rolled out a sheet of clay and textured it to match, cut the side plate, dried it and assembled and fired the art clay silver.   I had also made a little art clay silver stamp - this is my initials in reverse done with a photo polymer plate and it had a short post with a knob on it.  After firing I added a pin to the back of the plate using osp and re-firing the ring part with the post supported in a bit of kiln fibre, so that I could use the pin as a rivet (it shows on the previous picture).  I cut the texture on the top surface where the 'signet' is using a graving tool, the other marks are made using a file I have forgotten the name of (bought it from Robert Dancik).  I drilled a hole to take the peg of the signet and warmed the faux bone up so that I could push it in and it is held securely.  Filed the end of the peg smooth then inserted the silver ring into the faux bone.  I have used a bit of expoxy resin to stick the two sections together as didn't think the one rivet would really be enough - may have been if the fit had been really tight!  I then coloured the faux bone using alcohol inks and sanded then back to re-expose some of the white surface and sealed it with renaissance wax.

It has a small area cut out on the other flat surface where I put bits of gold leaf embedded in UV resin - the whole thing is really too messy for my taste but I have learned a lot in making it.

More experiments in ring making

I have spent the past few days experimenting with rings in a variety of materials.  Here are a selection of the finished rings.  The top left hand ring is resin with little pieces of cut thread embedded into it.  The top right hand ring is faux bone, art clay silver and alcohol inks. The bottom right hand ring is faux bone but before I textured it I made a mould and then poured a resin version with red thread embedded in it.  I am really enjoying my time experimenting like this, it is always good to take a break from the 'bread and butter' work and play for a while, letting new ideas bounce around the studio.