Home sweet home

So I am back home in Cornwall after a rather hectic week in London for New Designers, it was an amazing experience and I met some great people and made some good contacts. 

I was really happy to find a letter with my work from New Designers saying that they liked my work and inviting me to apply for 1 year on next year.

I will share some of the amazing makers I met in the next few days 

Xx

Update!

So I haven't been very active on here, where does time go?
I handed my final module in at the end of May, then I had to prepare for a presentation about my work. After that I think we were meant to relax. I forgot! I've been working (my normal day job), spending some time in my workshop, making and have squeezed in some time at the gym!

Well, here is my work all handed in

Oh well!

So I haven't posted for a while as I have been really busy making. With only 8 workshop days left I'm putting everything I can in to the final pieces. Unfortunately today my bowl I was raising developed some air bubbles, after a chat with my tutors they think it could be caused by contamination. There's no fixing it so it will have to be abandoned. This makes me sad yet quite relieved, one less thing to be worrying about! Will post some new pictures soon :-)

Bowls

I'm a little behind in my making at the moment as I had a few issues when raising the silver, I have only ever made one tiny silver bowl so I'm learning how far I can push the silver when raising. So a few holes and splits and a little frustration later I have 2 almost finished bowls. 

Quick trip to London!

I caught the night train up to London last night so I could visit the Festival of Silver exhibition at the Goldsmiths' Centre. There are some amazing silversmiths' work being exhibited. It's good to see the work up close instead of images on the internet. I know I have a long way to go before I'm as good as these guys!  

Here's some of the work of Rebecca Joselyn. She is interest in unwanted throwaway packaging and its negative impact on our environment and has developed a range of tableware for the home. 

I love her little spoons, they are so perfectly made. 

progress

So I've been working hard to get all my work done. We have deadlines every 3 weeks where we need to have between 3 and 10 pieces made. for the last deadline I had a 4 pieces made that have been inspired by something I found in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park.
Here it is....

A lot of my pieces have been inspired by this find, it was the only one in the whole of the grove that I could find. By using fold forming and doming I have created my first range of jewellery pieces.

                          

Silver bullion grant

A couple of weeks ago I submitted some designs to my tutors and was chosen by them and the Goldsmiths' Company to be given the Goldsmiths' student silver bullion grant. This means they give me £400 to buy silver and pay for hall marking to make my designs. This is very exciting, my work will be on display at New Designers in London with a special sign to say that I received the silver bullion grant and a representative from the Goldsmith' Company will come to see me on the evening of the private view to talk about my work. 

So this week my first order if silver arrived :-)

So nice to be able to make so much in silver at one time. I would never have been able to buy all this without the grant. Now I had better get making!