Conclusion

I was quite excited to start working with my own theme but when the pandemic hit it was difficult to stay creative without being able to make jewellery but I managed to use embroidery as my creative outlet. Once getting back to the studio I learnt new ways to do casting besides using silicone moulds to do lost wax casting. I learnt other new skills with textures that I then complemented with enamel to create some prototypes. I also realized that all of my prototypes I made refer to leaves and leaf anatomy in some way.   I want to continue using casting and enamel techniques to create finished pieces of jewellery by combining them in different ways, this will require me to do more drawings. If this pandemic is to continue I will use my time to design so that when I am in the studio I don't have to waste time, I can immediately start making jewellery pieces.

Introduction

My progress report consists of my research into organic jewellery. My research was compiled using action research methodology. This research was done using online articles and books, as well as the Virtual Gallery of Contemporary Jewellery. I used these writings to understand the functions of jewellery, organic jewellery, mixed materials, the design process and to develop my topic. My references consist of work done by professional jewellers that use different techniques and subject matter. I explain how nature influences each jeweller's work and how they relate to my prototypes. My prototypes were made using casting, enamel and texturing metal in different ways. I spent most of my time producing prototypes, with the platinum brooch being the only project that lead to a finished piece. This does not take into account the embroidery I did during the pandemic lockdown to keep busy, as that project produced masks rather than a piece of jewellery.

Explorations

After finding my references and deciding which techniques I wanted to experiment with, I started making prototypes. The techniques I wanted to work with work casting, enamelling and texture. Unfortunately, before I could really get started, the pandemic hit and we were forced to go into lockdown. This meant that I had to find new ways to work creatively at home. Therefore, I started embroidering and making face masks because they were needed at the time. 

As soon as we were allowed back into the studio, I started casting organic objects and playing with enamel stencilling. I then realized the work I had done in ceramics could be translated similarly to metal using punches and roll milling. This created textures that I enamelled over. I learnt to transfer fine details from clay into wax that could be used for casting. Textures that I also experimented with were a melted texture and using fly pressing to create intaglio and relief textures/images.

While making my prototypes, I was very inspired and the creation of one would lead straight to the making of the next. Despite this, my platinum prototypes were the only ones that I was able to turn into a finished piece. I still want to continue casting and using enamel as there are more ways to cast than just casting organic objects. I feel that if I did a bit more drawing and design work with my prototypes as a starting point, I could create finished jewellery pieces in the future that combine the techniques I learnt when making my prototypes.

Research Methodology

Action research is the methodology used to put together my research report due to the report being based on my practical work. Action research process works as a cycle to identify the problem, plan to fix the problem, put the solution into action, reflect, adjust the plan and begin again. In each phase, there are mini-cycles that take place in making decisions so the cycle is continuous. 

The Problem:

The main problem I had was to find what organic jewellery means to me. 

The Plan:

I gathered information from other authors to help define what I mean by organic jewellery and found jewellers that work with techniques and subject matter that I was interested in.

Action:

After understanding the bases of my theme and deciding which techniques to experiment with, I made prototypes.

Reflection:

I observed that most of my prototypes did not lead to finish pieces of jewellery. I also observed that some of the prototypes referred in some way to the anatomy of leaves. 

Adjustments:

I needed to address why my work was so focused on leaves and possibly refine my topic into something less broad. Most importantly, I wanted to use my prototypes or what I’d learned from making my prototypes to make finished pieces of jewellery.

Kolk, M., (n.d.), Action Research Cycle

Referenecs

When I reached a point where I understood my theme and knew roughly which techniques I wanted to experiment with, I looked for jewellers that I could learn techniques from. I learnt new ways to set enamels from Nora Kovats work. I also was inspired by Naomi James and Nic Bladen. James uses dried plants to roll mill texture on metal and Bladen casts organic objects in metal. Both jewellers are not doing harm to the environment as using part of a plant or a dead plant will not kill an entire eco-system. Besides looking at the surface of organic objects I am also interested in cellular growth.

Nervous Systems is a company that looks at cellular growth, but I cannot look to them for their techniques as they write their own computer programs to replicate nature. I admire them for their subject matter as they can't see it forming in nature with the naked eye so they recreate it digitally. Siobhan Doughty is a fine art student whose work I feel speaks to mine in terms of the subject matter. I also think that our work could work well in the same exhibition space.

I have not as yet found a jeweller that makes jewellery that combines casting, texturing metal and enamel most jewellers only stick to one technique but I want to make pieces that use different combinations of these techniques to make a cohesive body of work.

My theme

My focus for my theme was to research and develop my definition of organic jewellery. I achieved this by looking at the academic writings of Bruce Metcal, Kenneth Quickenden and Liz Olver. According to Quickenden (2000) organic jewellery echoes nature, for me this fall in the category of spiritual mediation according to the three traditional functions of jewellery (Metcalf, 1998). This is because the jewellery that echoes nature reminds me of the beauty of nature when it is untouched by humans. 

Through the process of making my prototypes, I was inspired by Liz Olver (2002:98-103) to design as I worked and echo nature by immortalizing it through casting and mixing materials. With my prototypes, I expressed my fascination with leaves, the cellular and physical, and other organic objects. However, as I create my finished pieces of jewellery from my prototypes, I think my personal connection to each piece will become more apparent. 

Table of Contents 2020

Introduction

Research Methodology

My Theme:

• Metcalf
• VGCJ -Organic
• - Mixed Materials
• Liz Olver
• Topic Development

References:

• Nora Kovats
• Naomi James
• Nic Bladen
• Nervous System
• Siobhan Doughty

Explorations:

• Casting 
• Plant Casting
• Butterfly wings

• Enamelling 
• Siobhan Doughty
• Punches
• Roll mill

• Platinum 
• Test Piece 1
• Test Piece 2
• Test Piece 3
• Finished Piece Reflection

• Ceramics
• Textured discs
• Stylised wax impressions
• Leaf wax impressions

• Mould making
• 3D Prints 
• Fly pressing

• Miscellaneous 
• Embroidered venation
• Face masks

Conclusion

References list

Quick cast

On my way to campus, I found a butterfly wing that I thought was interesting and a good addition to my display at my bench. The wing was torn so I thought about attaching it to wax to give it stability for when it is pinned up. Once I figured out how to attach the wing to the wax it dawned on me that it could possibly be cast, Figure 1. I sprayed the wing and wax with clear lacquer spray, as organic objects can be porous, then I invested and crossed my fingers that it would work. After casting I was so shocked to see how much detail was transferred to the metal, Figure 2. This was a random test that could possibly lead to future projects.

Figure 1-Bowes, K., (2020). butterfly wing on wax.

Figure 2 -Bowes, K., (2020). the cast wing.

Making Masks

Putting my embroidery and stitching skills to some use I decided to make some face masks. I used the embroidery I had been working on for some time to make the first mask as I had no clue what I was going to do with the embroidery once it was done (Fig. 1).

After my first mask was successful, I had enough material to make a second one. I wanted to try stitch a flower, but I wasn't sure which flower at first. I eventually decided to stitch Forget-Me-Not flowers (Anchusa capensis) which are five-petaled blue flowers with yellow centres. They are indigenous to South Africa. I was given a packet of Forget-me-not seeds with my dog's ashes at the beginning of the lockdown. I haven't planted the seeds yet and I don't know if I will.

I started stitching with a dark blue thread as it was the only thread, I had at the time but when my local haberdashery opened I managed to get a blue thread closer to the colour of the flowers. I used yellow beads for the middle of the flowers which added another texture. The beads also catch the light drawing attention to the flowers so they don't get lost on the blue background.

I want to make a few more masks with some embroidery but I want to try sewing them up with the sewing machine as the embroidery takes time and stitching by hand makes the process a lot longer.

Figure 1 - Bowes, K ., (2020). abstract embroidery mask.

Figure 2 - Bowes, K., (2020). Forget-me-not embroidery mask.

More doodles

A doodle inspired by my bubbles.  

My meditation during the lockdown.

Triangle embroidery progress

I tried to do a pattern with circles but I ended up trying to make all the circles perfectly round and I found it difficult to work with. The triangles fit together like a puzzle and I can use different types of triangles(equilateral, isosceles and scalene). The pattern was natural to draw because I used to do triangle doodles like this in school but instead of drawing on paper, I used to draw on my skin like my left hand or my knees. I chose the complementary colours so that the orange would stand out against the blue fabric.

Bowes, K., (2020). Abstract embroidery.

Doodles

I spent a whole day during the lockdown doing mindless doodles to pass the time. Once I was done, I filled the page, I thought it would be interesting to embroid all of the negative spaces between the triangles. I drew the pattern again onto some of the scrap fabric I have been using for embroidery. I use a fine liner that will wash out of the fabric when I am done so there will be no black lines left once it is done. I chose adjacent orange colours (yellow-orange, orange, red-orange) or as close to them as I could get with the thread I have on hand. I chose these colours as orange is the complementary colour to blue and the fabric is a light denim blue. Working with three colours is better than working with one as it can be boring and three colours will make the thread go further. I didn't draw the whole pattern because I don't fill the embroidery ring to the edges I want to draw as I embroid; I love the irregular shape the whole pattern makes naturally. The thread makes the triangles lose their ridged geometric look, even if the threads line up perfectly the sides of the triangles aren't smooth because I am stitching horizontally.

Figure 1- Bowes, K., (2020). Drawing of the triangle pattern.

Figure 2- Bowes, K., (2020). Triangle pattern embroidered.

Venation embroidered

I photocopied and enlarged one of my leaf skeletons on a photocopy machine so I could see the veins clearly. I decided to embroider the pattern as this is what I was going to add an enamel piece to, but I can't exactly enamel being stuck at home. I used the same photocopier to draw and pierce out the copper I was going to enamel. I used scrap material to practice my embroidery. I wanted to use green thread as I thought the finished embroidery might look abstract once it was done as the image was only part of the leaf and not the whole leaf. The only green thread I had was one that changes colour. This added to the randomness of the design as the changes in colour were unpredictable as the lengths of colours weren't exactly the same and cutting smaller pieces of thread to work with also made the colour changes unpredictable. The green is monochromatic as the thread was ombre that went from dark to normal green to light green and then repeated.

Photo collage

I was inspired by Nora Kovat to use an actual reference to inspire my enamelling colour choices. I want to choose colour schemes that exist in nature. I am going to do some watercolour drawings but for the meantime, I created some digital photo collages. I used photos I have taken of my garden and other places; I want to print my collages and place them at my bench to influence my work. My original plan was to do some collages from magazines and some drawings. Due to the lockdown, I couldn't collect any from friends and family as I don't have any magazines at home.

I downloaded the photos and uploaded them into an app called Artflow. Each image had its own layer and I moved layer by layer erasing the backgrounds of each picture. This was time-consuming and somewhat frustrating to try not accidentally erase the edges of the image. I then played with placement and layering the images to see which image needed to overlap other images. Once the individual images were layered exactly to my liking I merged them into one image. When I was about to save the first collage I accidentally made the collage a negative which changed all the colours their opposite colour also making it neon. The changes made the collage interesting especially the second collage it made the plants look like deep-sea neon coral. I saved both collages as normal images and as negatives.

First collage

First collage negative

Second collage

Second collage negative

Stencil?

I really enjoyed piercing this pattern out. One of the small sections broke though, as the metal is thin and I dropped my saw frame with the blade and piece still attached.

I'm not sure what I am going to do with it yet, I am thinking if I should enamel it or use it as a stencil. So because I can't make my mind up I decided to pierce another one. 

Plant casting

Using my inspiration from Burnout casting and my very badly made Silicone molds. The vertebra I found on the beach and made a silicone mould of it which I then injected wax into the mould. The wax roses I cast in the same flask as the vertebra were from a mold I made last year (Fig. 2). Wax is what is what is normally used for casting as wax burns out easily in the kiln but I wanted to try cast plants.  I grew succulents (Haworthia and Sedum Adolphii) and picked the newly budding ones so that when it is cast it will not weight too much in metal(Fig. 1). Plants will burn to ash in the kiln unlike the wax that will vaporize in the kiln but succulents are water based. The flask would need to be raised so that the water which will turn to steam has somewhere to evaporate rather than being trapped in the flask.

Figure 1 -Bowes, K., (2020). Succulents for casting.

Figure 2- Bowes, K., (2020). wax vertebra and roses.

I cast the succulents and vertebra in gilding metal (Fig. 3 and 4) as I was not sure if the burn out method for the succulents would work. This was an experiment as I did not have a final goal or use for these items once they were cast.

Figure 3 - Bowes, K., (2020). Haworthia and Sedum Adolphii. 

Figure 4 - Bowes, K., (2020). cast vertebra.

Opaque enamel with stencil

I redid my leaf skeleton stencil work but I used flat copper pieces and added backing enamel for support. The details came out so much better but I think this is also due to the change in enamel colours that I used to create contrast. Figure 1, I used light and dark green which is almost an exact match of colour to the leaf when it is being cleaned. I used a light green and blue enamel on the second one (Fig 2) to try something different but still keeping the contrast.

Figure 1- Green layered enamel

Figure 2 - Blue and green layered enamel

Leaf Skeleton Stencil

I wanted to use my leaf skeletons as a stencils for enameling to see if I could capture the detail from the skeleton . I first tested my enamel colours (Fig. 1 below) so I could figure out the approximate amount of time each colour needed to be fired so that it was not under or over fired once layered.

Figure 1 - Enamel test pieces 

I chose to dome my copper as this eliminates the need for backing enamel. Working enamel on copper or any metal it is better to have the copper domed or if the metal is flat a backing enamel is used so that the stress/tension is even on both sides of the copper when it's being fired. If a backing enamel is not used on flat pieces the enamel can crack.  Figure 2 shows which part of the leaf I used as a stencil and figure 3 shows the final enameled piece.

Figure 2 - Enameled dome and leaf stencil

Figure 3 - Enameled dome

Working on a dome was difficult and I found the detailing came out better on the flat prototype than it did on the dome. As can be seen in figure 3 I lost most of the detail on the right.

Leaf Skeleton

Cleaning the leaf after boiling it

A cleaned leaf that has been bleached

I boiled the leaves in washing powder so all of the living cells could be brushed off using a combination of a toothbrush and paintbrush, leaving the xylem of the leaf behind. This can be a long process as the xylem of the leaf is fragile and can break if too much pressure is applied to the brush.