Victorian Magic. Folklore fun.

I have tried a few variations of images to combine for the magic necklaces. And the possibilities are simply endless, but here are a few.

Bird and Cage

Cyclist and pennyfarthing

Dandylion and diagrettes

Tea pot and cup

Animals 

Boy and his stick horse

Fish/butterfly and net

As Metcalf refers to in his essay On The Nature of Jewellery, it's limitations and boundaries can be a useful guideline, as opposed to a constriction. This too can apply in the subject matter, i think, because it becomes overwhelming to consider the world of existing objects or imagery. To help with this, better defining my area of "folklore" and "nostalgia" will happily limit my spectrum of images. 

Perhaps, even then, it might be best to focus on personal or European folklore, for example. I hope to feel it over time.

All grown up with no place to go.

 My youngest brother recently had his Matric dance for which I made his date a corsage. The florist was flooded with orders and so I made do with some pearlescent faux flowers.

 I covered the ugly elastic which formed the band with some white lace, gathered such that it could stretch with the elastic. In each stitch where it was gathered I put a pearl bead.

To add some volume and a touch of silver (to match her jewellery) I sewed in some ribbon folds.

I had bought some mini carnations to use but they ended up competing with the fake flowers, and so used some non-competitive Jip to fill up and visually soften the corsage.

The organic with the subtle colour spectrum of the fake flowers made for a very pleasing friendship.

The real reward came not from how well I had or hadn't executed the nit-picking details or balance of old, new, and organic, but rather from the delight in the wearers reaction at the thought of having been given a corsage. She had romanticized about receiving one to her mother and had thought it too old fashioned to be possible.
I am glad that although there were not real flowers as the main feature, what is there is a keepsake which will last longer, with the newly added value of association/connotation. It "is" the Matric dance.

Making Victorian my own

 Above is a piece of silver i had etched with a ready made pattern which i printed onto transparency sheet. Because I am trying to personalise my designs a bit more I am going to try and etch over the already etched pattern- just using a nature inspired Victorian style spider and web scratched into bitchumen.

 This is my tattoo.

 I have also started designing my own wallpaper designs which i am going to make in digital form and mirror to make them symmetrical then etch and recreate in my jewellery.

Etching and then some

 

 I am trying to run silver solder into the etched copper lines as to later file down the excess and have the pattern shown in silver in the copper.

 I have some pieces of porcelain/pottery with which i am etching complementary patterns which immitate or correspond to the pieces themselves.

Etching away

As my focus moves more towards the ornament and it's patterns and motifs of Victorian objects, I am trying to incorporate more such style in my pieces. I have been etching silver and copper using bitchumen as a resist and hand drawing the detail to be etched using mainly Victorian wallpaper as a reference.

Originally i was using transparencies (as below) of printed pre-existing designs as a resist to etch but wanted to make the pieces more "my own."

Vinyl Record Bangles Revisitted

 I have been fighting the idea of leaving my record bangles plain because i just feel they lack substance without some eye garnish :P I was using lace and button or silver silhouette details to add some context to them, but have recently tried my hand at engraving them with an electric engraver.

 While the engraving was fairly successful on the flat records, once bent up it bent out leaving only the deepest enravings visible.

My next step is to send some flat ready cut record pieces (of wich i now have stacks) to a professional hand engraver to see if by our skills combined we can make some beautiful bangles.
I also noticed recently that it was common for Victorian cuffs or bangles to be made in pairs, and think this approach might suit the vinyl cuffs- especially in that i have always considered them to reference old fashioned sleeve cuffs.

Serviette holder

I experimented with some pre-prototypes of a serviette holder, onto which I will build a more detailed design relating to my work. The holders thus far were just made of aluminium and cardboard and were focussed more on the shape of the holder than anything else.