Epoxy resin samples

Resin workshop with  Kathie Murphy at City Lit

Samples in little measuring pots, discarded dessert pots and silicone ice cube trays (any mould made of polypropylene works). Playing about with dye pastes found objects:

Photo courtesy Jo Teague

                                                                                  

DIY silicone mould:

Photo courtesy Jo Teague

Handmade Spectacles

Since March, I have been working on a totally new piece. As my final project for City and Guilds Structured Jewellery level 3, I've made a pair of functional optical frames for prescription lenses, inspired by radio masts.

I have wanted for some time to make an object of function that is worn as the requirements are very different to those that are merely decorative. Primarily, they needed to suit my face and be comfortable - the weight being a significant design concern. Optics seemed at first to be a very closed world. No accessible insights into the tools of the trade/conventions of practice seemed available. I felt my way, frustratedly googling every glasses-making phrase I could conjure. Gradually I found crumbs of knowledge through youtube videos, dissecting existing specs, downloading and reading optical supplies catalogues and searching out jewellers who make glasses (few and far between). I was very grateful initially for the Facebook group 'eyejam', set up by New Zealand based jeweller and self taught spectacle maker Brian Adam for helping demystify the initial principles and protocols in the fabrication of bespoke specs.

There are many options available to the handcrafter looking to fabricate their own frames, glazing labs can work around more tenuous ergonomics than you might expect! I was very lucky to find an independent Optician willing to advise me along the way, thank you graciously to C.E.Hall in Surrey.

After a bit of sketching from some photos I took of radio mast construction, I began testing out related, simple geometric frame shapes on my face. I settled on a half round arched brow line with contrasting cross bar in flat strips of Sterling and Reflections silver. 

   Alport Heights radio mast        Silver frame components

My difficulties came with the side tabs that hold the handmade hinges. These define the pantoscopic tilt of the glasses when worn and also need to provide a solid grounding for the hinge and temple movement. A logistical challenge on paper rendered a logistical nightmare in silversmithing! Keeping the hinge tubes aligned (shown between the brass tabs in the image below) is more complex than I could ever have fathomed and my resultant solution is simply never to make a precisely engineered object with angles on too many planes again!

Soldering the tabs to the silver crossbar

Tapping the hinge rod holes for the temples to screw into

I dealt with the obstacle of connecting steel to brass by threading the steel arms so that they screw into the brass hinge rod and fixing with some loctite. This hasn't proved to be an ideal solution as wear will cause loosening and movement of the temples. Still, it's a nice mechanical feature. 

The specs were furnished with glass nosepads, gunmetal nuts and bolts and rectangles I cut and polished up from a block of pen turning plastic. 

Rear view: Steel arms screw into brass rods held within silver tubes

London Jewellery Week - City Lit Benchpeg Awards

Awards ceremony tonight revealed the three winners. Drumroll............ 

BMV amulet brooch scooped a super duper 2nd prize! Judged by the founder of jewellery oracle Benchpeg and jewellers Wright and Teague, my bronze hand-pierced amulet has taken the second prize amongst the 16 shortlisted students.

The amulet has two sides. Below is the Cypher side. The design is comprised of shapes and squiggles that all mean something, forming a secret language of my own. I have combined my Cyphers here in formation of a grotesque face, to ward off unwanted /ill-tempered human intervention. It has a clip at the top which connects it to the brooch/ a belt/ a chain etc....

The reverse side is more formal, for when you want to keep your spiritual perversions secret:

1st prize was deservingly awarded to my dear friend and true bohemian Brigitte Pividal. Her silver brooch inspired by the battle of the virus and the white blood cell:

And 3rd prize was awarded to Kostantinos Karanikas for a stupendous metal, concrete and pyrite neckplate:

Beasties hatching

I'm scared of spiders. But these are quite sweet really, in formation like a flock of starlings. If I was a bird, however, I'd think: LUNCH.

Crystals

My tubes have grown some appendages! I think this was caused by the bicarb of soda I used to neutralise the pickle....