Hey, I have a new computer! Now I can finally do the mother of all updates! My title for this post seems sort of ridiculous since we are way beyond midterm now, in fact there are only 21 days left for me this semester. This post is going to be a lot of pictures and not a lot of writing as I have one 10 page paper to write and another 12-15 page paper (which really should take priority over this, oh well).
Anyway, here are my final pieces for the first casting project! They were a little bit of a soldering and riveting nightmare, but I am so happy with how they turned out.
After I made the rubber mold, I started injecting waxes. It took a while for me to get the timing right, and it was definitely a test of my patience waiting to pull them out but I got some good ones for my duplicates.
All sprued up and ready to go!
After many hours that included investing, casting, cleaning, grinding, chain making, soldering and patinas it was done!
I have been playing around more and more with electroforming, especially since that is going to be a huge element in my show at the Anna Leonowens Gallery next semester. I am still finding it slightly difficult to get consistent results, but I am still really happy with the tests I have done so far.
I did a small test with some of my wax rejects from my duplicates project. Success!
More testing, this time with wax wire. The interior is really interesting, that's something I want to play around more with later on.
And then there was more laser cutting! For my sample, I cut two of these out of a piece of paper-backed veneer.
There were some riveting issues, but it was a good test to see some of the possibilities with laser cutting/engraving.
During my long absence from blogging, Kai Chan did a lecture at NSCAD in conjunction with the opening of a retrospective show at the St. Mary's Gallery. His work was incredibly inspirational, especially in regards to our alternative materials project in jewellery. He talked about having collections of things and not wanting anything to go to waste. The images he showed during the lecture were fantastic but they paled in comparison to what they looked like in person in the gallery. The image below is from Kai's website and shows his piece La Primavera - Homage to Bottocelli. It was my favourite piece at the show by far. Kai was not only inspiration he was hilarious too, he even earned a quote in my quotebook: "I'm going to die soon, so I better throw away some of my things. Maybe a few boxes."
For my alternative material I used scraps of fabric mostly acquired from Katrina who was glad to be rid of all of these tiny scraps! I will have to post more pictures of the materials project when I get around to taking good photos of them, but here are a few. This one is one of the pieces in progress:
This is the pink and purple one completed.
And then I started working with glass again. This is one of the times of year where balancing school and business is a fun adventure. On top of all of my school work I am making work to send to L.A. Pai Gallery for their 25th Annual Contemporary Canadian Jewellery show (more info on that later). I am making little beer bottles! After some of the more elaborate things I have been doing in school, I have definitely missed doing simple production work, it's been nice to get back at it.
Final projects are also well underway. Here I am having fun with facets on the mill for my final project in precision fabrication.
Transformation is the theme for our final project in intermediate jewellery, which is also the theme for a call for entry for a show that will be running during the SNAG conference and Toronto International Jewellery Festival next year.
My wax is all prepped and ready to go in the e-bath tomorrow!
Assuming I am not melting down while trying to write papers I will hopefully have another post up soon.