Personal Reflection

Since I started my Instagram jewellery page it has been called Kay Jewellery with the idea of my own business. During my Postgraduate studies I tried to force this idea onto myself which was mentally exhausting for me. I constantly doubted if my work was good enough or valid. 

 I realized I thrive so much more in a team than on my own. I have since joined the team at Phil Bear Jewellers full time. I love it and am learning a lot.

 I want to revamped my Instagram into a journal. The page has become less about the finished jewellery pieces and more about the creative process. Which to me has become more important as my creativity reaches far more than just making jewellery. 

I will still be keeping my website as Kay Jewellery which I started during my Postgraduate studies, but I have changed the online store I to more of a portfolio of my work. I will continue to add to as time goes on. 

I don't regret all the work I put into Kay Jewellery but I still haven't fully figured out who Kay Jewellery is... and that's ok. 

Concluding remarks

 Upon starting my research I generated my research question and supporting sub-questions. I spent time defining my title, Producing Orangic Contemporary Jewellery by gathering academic writings and references of other jewellers. The semi-structured interview helped guide my research and give me direction.

Whilst I researched I designed and constructed my body of work with the aim of showcasing and selling these pieces on a website. I feel as if designing the website was the best decision I made as it is something I will defiantly continue to add to and refine. As stated previously there are pieces I still want to continue with these include the sunflower earpiece, the second organic chain, simplifying the epoxy pieces and experimenting with my chain links.

I learnt a lot from developing my body of work, I learnt new techniques like how to work with epoxy, moulding wax for casting and how to design and set up a website. With my research being open-ended there is still space to grow in manufacturing pieces I did not get to and new pieces to develop my online website into a profitable business.

Introduction

 I used the title of my research report 'Producing Organic Contemporary Jewellery' to draw up a research question and supporting sub-questions. The research was done using the Action research methodology (McNiff, 2002) to arrive at an open-ended conclusion to the research questions. The report is divided into three chapters and consists of both in-action and on-action reflections (Schön1983)

Chapter one presents my interpretation of the terms used in the title. My interpretations are supported by: Koberg and Bagnall’s (1981) design process that I applied to my own design process, Quickenden(2000) who provided an understanding of contemporary trends, Metcalf (1998) who provided information regarding the functions of jewellery, Quickenden (2000) and Olver (2002) for more information about organic jewellery and how organic does not always mean working with organic materials.

Chapter two consists of the jewellers I used as references and similar characteristics to my own work. These include Nic Bladen and Louise Partain who both cast using plants, Nicole Ringgold whose pieces are sculptural and Naomi Tracz who uses cast elements to create spin-off pieces. The chapter also incorporates the findings from a semi-structured interview with Michelle Pujol, that aided in delimiting my research.

Chapter three discusses the three foci of my research question: my design development, mass production and marketing. My design development is presented as three discrete collections of jewellery I made throughout the year: Leaves, Sunflowers and Chain Links.  My exploration of mass production revolved around the use of lost wax casting. The marketing focus culminated on the website I designed to showcase and sell the pieces in the collections.

Donald Schön

 Donald Schön wrote a book called The Reflective Practitioner (1983) in which he explains that creatives, " know more than they can say," and often only reveal their vast knowledge whilst actively producing work.  

"There are actions, recognitions, and judgements which we know how to carry out spontaneously; we do not have to think about them prior to or during their performance." These spontaneous actions are depicted through the decisions made whilst I design, prototype and produce my body of work. From what I understand from Schön's book "reflection in action" is done by recognizing the spontaneous decisions and recording them.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find Schön's, 1987, writing about reflection on action but I found a research paper that refers to his writing (Hugh, 1989). The paper explains how reflection on action is about learning from the experience which is usually overlooked. From this I understand that reflection on action happens after each piece has been produced.

Due to reflection in action taking place simultaneously to producing work this writing tends to be informal. Whereas reflection on action happens after the piece is completed therefore this writing is more formal.

A. Schön, D., 1983.  Sopper.dk. Available at: https://www.sopper.dk/speciale/arkiv/book49.pdf [Accessed 16 December 2021].

Hugh, M., 1989. Files.eric.ed.gov. Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED309163.pdf [Accessed 16 December 2021].

 

Design Process

My research question refers to developing designs but for me to design I had to go through a design process. So instead of developing my designs, I utilized my time to make sense of my design process using Koberg and Bagnall's design process (1981:17). The phases of the design process are acceptance, analyse, define, ideate, implementation and evaluation.

Acceptance, my process was influenced by, "What [comes] next? [which] pertains to looking backwards and looking ahead [...] this is the stage where the process both ends and begins"(Koberg and Bagnall, 1981:35). This is portrayed in my manufacturing where I looked back by using castings, photos, ideas and writing from last year and adapted them to my current body of work. In terms of looking ahead, I designed a website that combines various aspects of my work. Therefore becoming the final display of my body or work and the start of an operational business.

Analysis "pertains to finding facts and relationships," (Koberg and Bagnall, 1981:34) which I explored by examining how other jewellers produce and market their work. I also analysed how their work influences my own body of work.

To define the outcome of my body of work I generated a research question and subquestion. I then "extract[ed] the key words,"(Koberg and Bagnall, 1981:64) to help me narrow down the vast theme that is contemporary organic jeweller.

Ideate and select, I used brainstorming to determine the first/focal design for each of my collections. I then played with the elements I already had to generate variations that I selected from to produce my spin-offs to populate my website.

Implementation, I used " trial and error"(Koberg and Bagnall, 1981:92) by creating prototypes to help develop my body of work. I grouped the pieces that make up my body of work creating three collections. The pieces in each collection were grouped according to their, "common denominator"(Koberg and Bagnall, 1981:88) which became the title for each collection.

Evaluation, for each piece I recoded both my observations and reflections on my blog whilst the manufacturing process took place.

Chapter 3 conclusion

Each design was developed by exploring different materials and techniques. Even though the pieces were so different I managed to group them into three collections. I showcase these collections on the Wix website I designed. I do not feel that these collections are complete and I plan to make more pieces to add to my website. I explored mass production using mould making lost wax casting. This increased the number of pieces I produced for my website and means I will have a mould to remake pieces to produce stock for the website.

For the sunflower collection, I plan to spend time trying to perfect all the elements that will complete the earpiece. I plan to continue working with my leaves in epoxy to produce simple and wearable pieces that will be added to the leaf collection. The chain links I feel have a lot of potential as the shapes are simple and can be reused in many new designs. The advantage of having designs I still want to create means I can continue to add to my website, the more pieces I add the larger the audience I will appeal to. Producing my body of work was rewarding, especially to see how everything came together to produce a functional website.

Chapter 2 conclusion

 During this chapter, I learnt about several jewellers who all utilize castings but each translate into different outcomes. Although these jewellers produce different styles of work each one played a significant part in researching for my body of work. 

Louise Partain and Nic Bladen both cast from organic objects similarly to the castings I produced last year. Naomi Tracz chain is the closest reference I could find to my organic chain, Tracz spin-off pieces from her chain inspired me to create my own spin-offs using my links. Nicole Ringgold inspired me to work sculpturally, her pieces look cast but they are made by fusing and melting scrap pieces of metal.

Michelle Pujol's work is also quite sculptural and I had a semi-structured interview with her to get input about my work. I summarized Michelle Pujol's responses from the semi-structured interview I conducted using my research sub-questions. I provided my own response that reflects how her responses were applied to or differ from my own work.