http://tidbitstrinkets.com/Graphics/collage/corsetsandladiesbwmed.jpg

 

http://www.angelpig.net/victorian/cycling.html

Looking at some functional, iconic objects from the 19th Century which could translate well into jewellry less literally than a complete silhouette. I am interested to identify which objects are so recognisable because of their functional features that those features alone can evoke recognition and perhaps the nostalgia usually caught by a more obvious or complete reference.

Variations on the lace and button vinyl bangle

Final Gramophone necklace

 Here is the finished LP necklace.

 The chain and subtle but strong catch.

The back is highly polished and smooth creating a pattern of fish eye reflections

Just a thought

'The definitive collection of 19th Century literature in which the vampire, or vampirism, both embodied and atmospheric, appears. Seventeen seminal texts by legendary European authors, covering the whole of that delirious period from Gothic and Romantic, through Symbolism and Decadence to proto-Surrealism and beyond, in a single volume charged with sex, blood and horror. Includes: Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Machen, Le Comte de Lauteamont, Count Stenbock, J K Huysmans, Jean Lorrain, Théophile Gautier, Charles Nodier, J Sheridan Le Fanu, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Oscar Wilde, Ivan Turgenev, Charlotte Brontë, J M Ryder.' -(http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/books/t/t2238.htm accessed 28 Mach 2011)

 

Even the vampires of the 19th Century were worth pining after in relativity to the modern take thereof. Unlike Twilight, True Blood, or Vampire Diaries, there was some intrigue, depth and ambiguity in the nature of the vampires. They still chose drank human blood (world peace seems to be the new goal of today's modern, non-human-eating vampire). Their novels in which they were brought to life still embraced their origins and their history-which, in the case of vampires who are eternal and immortal, allowed for such a rich and descriptive field of narration. Nostalgia is sometimes better described as a rejection of the now, in relativity to the then.

The gramophone and the record

Emile Berliner invented the flat record in 1887, a development on the previous cylindrical records invented by Thomas Edison in 1877, which could be made into a mould and reproduced allowing the mass production of the records we now recognise and remember. It was Berliner who's trademark was the dog listening to "His master's voice" on a gramophone. (http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gramophone.htm, accessed 28 March 2011)

http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/5/T/nipper-gramophone.jpg

The trademark was then passed on to Eldridge R. Johnson, and through him it became it's presently famed self.

In the blog of Sketch's Studios, the notion of voice recording being a photograph of sound is introduced in a quotation by Abbé  Lenoir . This 'photograph' of the sound of the 19th century has, i think, just as potent an ability to allow escape into the past as does a photograph of the same time.

http://jonathanpearmain.blogspot.com/2011/03/research-introducing-gramophone.html#comment-form

LP necklace

 I used sterling silver domes linked with varying sized round jump rings to form the chain and the bases on which to sew(set) the vinyl discs.

In order to find an appropriate layout of the pieces i tried different arrangements before soldering them together.

I textured the inside of the domed silver discs with a rough rubber wheel to create a clean and reflective but not highly polished look when seen through the pierced vinyl discs.

Silhouette on vinyl cuff

 The Cuff is a slumped and bent strip of vinyl record.

The silhouette is made of blackened and glass brushed sterling silver, hand shaped and sewn onto the vinyl through drilled holes.