Platinum reflection

I was not sure where to begin designing for the platinum brief because the theme was men's jewellery and the piece still fell within my concept of organic jewellery. I started off looking at different types of men's jewellery and eventually decided to work with a drawing of an abstract organic pattern that was influenced by a reference picture of a tree.

 I wanted to use enamel to incorporate colour but without using a coin frame setting. Nora Kovats stood out to me because she creates simple settings that I would never have thought of to hold enamel. I tried to set two enamel pieces but I felt that it was too close to Nora Kovats' work and I wanted to make my work different. To make the piece my own, I decided to make a brooch and only set enamel on one side. 

 Enamel can be tricky as some colours do not work well together, so many tests need to be done. Working with enamel with more than one colour is hard as you can only have control over a few variables, like temperature and timing, that will determine the outcome of the piece. Once it is in the kiln, I have no control over how the colours will interact with one another. A benefit of the randomness of the interaction between two colours is that it looks organic and unforced.

 The brooch's shape had to be changed because the initial circle with a confined pattern mimicked Nora Kovats' work too much. Instead, I worked with the shapes the pattern was naturally creating. I eventually found a shape within the pattern that I liked as the negative spaces seemed to converge towards one point. This ended up looking like a butterfly wing which added to the contrast of the fragile enamel being set in platinum.

 I was considering placing a cast succulent under the enamel to add some texture but it was too overpowering for the design. Instead, to add texture I experimented with a melted pattern/texture. Just like working with enamel, the melted pattern had variables   that I was unable to control. I could drill a hole where I wanted a melted hole, but I had no control over how the metal would melt. That is why making prototypes and having a backup hammered texture was important.

 As I made my first prototype, I noted changes to make to my process for the next prototype. The notes on my claws were actually beneficial when working with platinum as the metal splitting occurred in both silver and platinum. The brooch pin was a struggle for me as I wanted to incorporate the pin into the design, so I referred to some technical references. By the time I had finished the third prototype, I only noted a few small changes before starting with the platinum.

 Working with platinum had its own challenges but from making three prototypes I did not experience as many problems as I would of if I did not make a prototype. The melted texture worked out really well in the platinum. To make my finished piece more presentable for the completion I came up with a plan to use gel nail polish to make the edges of the enamel and designed my own custom box origami box with inner support for delivery.

 I felt my piece and the design fell into the design hook "self belief" from the brief, which they described as, "staying focused and persevering in the face of challenges: overcoming lows". They also used the words "perforation", which fits the design, and "mismatch", which for me connects to the pairing of strong platinum and fragile enamel. I encountered many challenges while making this piece. However, I feel that the moments where I lost control of the process reminded me of times in our lives where no matter how hard we try to control a situation, the outcome is out of our hands. Like I did when creating this piece, we sometimes must take a step back and find the beauty that comes from letting things happen the way they were meant to happen.