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.

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. 

Chapter 1 Conclusion

 Throughout this chapter, I have attempted to define the significant words that make up my title,' Producing Contemporary Organic Jewellery,' in relation to my body of work. I learnt that mass-production is not limited to producing finished pieces and my body of work is a mixture of contemporary trends with the most important being to market the pieces using an online platform. I also learnt that organic jewellery can be spiritual without being religious and that organic does not simply speak to materials but can refer to the evolution during production.

Chapter 3 Introduction

 In this chapter, I separate the work I produced throughout the year into the three foci that make up my research question: which are: design development, mass production and marketing. I did this with the hope of finding an open-ended conclusion to my research question and sub-questions. Under design development, I showcase the finished pieces in my three collections and each piece is accompanied by a summary of the process that lead to the final piece. I discuss the method I chose to explore for both mass-producing pieces and marketing them.

Chapter 2 Introduction

 The chapter examines the work of other jewellers that refer to the same theme, organic, which is the foundation of my body of work. I focus on jewellers who utilize casting as it is a skill I have been developing and used in the three collections I produced. I used the other jeweller's websites as a reference for designing my own. The semi-structured interview I conducted with Michelle Pujol helped me to delimit the possibilities of casting and the theme organic.

Design books

Unfortunately, the videos of my four design books are too large to upload onto blogger so I posted the videos of my design books onto my Instagram so that they will be in the journal on my website. I also uploaded my videos to youtube: chain designs, chain links, leaves and sunflowers

The first design book consisted of the mass-produced designs that I folded into signatures. I hand-stitched and bound the signatures together. For the final books, I wanted to ensure certain photos stood out in the book so I printed important photos on gloss paper. I planned the layout of each signature. I used my sewing machine to stitch them together as hand stitching was too loose. I added two small watercolour paintings into my design books which contrast the printed images the same way the handmade paper covers contrast with the smooth card used for the signatures. I 

Design Development

The designs I developed this year, I categorised into three collections:

1. Leaves
2. Sunflowers
3. Chain Links

Each collection consists of a focal design and spin-off pieces. The spin-offs were generated whilst developing the focal piece, as a by-product of the focal piece and just by having similar subject matter. In between working on my body of work, I learnt how to make paper which I used to compile design books for each collection.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Collections.

Marketing

 I started the year off with an online Entrepreneurship course organized by the Wadhwani Foundation in India. The course gave me insight into how to start a business and how to move a business online. Which intrigued me as with the Covid -19 virus a website seemed to be the best option because the I heart market closed and is not allowing new jewellers to join. 

ArtBusiness.com  has articles for artists on a range of topics one being the Do's and Don'ts, How to Build a Website that Works I used this article to generate a checklist of what to add to my website. I tested how simple it is to make my own website with both WordPress and Wix. I had more success working on Wix and continued with Wix to develop the website. I settled on a layout of the website and added all of my jewellery pieces. It was very rewarding to see all my hard work come together to produce my website.

As I continually make more jewellery I will add and edit my website. I hope to have a small variety of pieces that will appeal to a large audience of people.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Website Home Page.

Pendant- spin-offs

The image below shows a collection of sterling silver pendants inspired by my organic chain links.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Link pendants.

 

Both of the pendants were put together from the textured links. Not all of the textured links were successful so I decided against making moulds of all the textured links and rather use the successful links to make finished pieces, as seen below.

Ring - Spin-offs

The image below shows a collection of sterling silver rings inspired by my organic chain links.

Bowes, K., (2021). Link rings.

The spin-off rings are derived from my organic chain like the earrings. They were also made with the intention to sell either at the market or on my website. For the rings, I tried to hide the link in the design so the use of the links is not as obvious as the spin-off earrings. The plain double band ring and the teardrop ring sold at the recent I heart market.

Organic Chain

Figure 1 is my completed organic chain with links cast in copper and silver.  Figure 2 shows the chains' focal link that consists of a ring cast in gilding metal and a succulent cast in silver.

Figure 1- Bowes, K.,(2021). Organic chain.

Figure 2- Bowes, K., (2021). Chain details.

Whilst working at Phile Bear jewellers I was tasked with casting a chain. I wanted to make the most of my experience so I used an app called ArtFlow to mass-produce designs of my own organic chain with three different shaped links. I designed chains using the shapes individually and by mixing them.

Whilst designing I thought about using succulents I cast in silver last year as a focal point. The petals of the castings were fragile so I designed the succulents to sit in a 'flower pot' to add stability to the petals. I used ring wax to cast the 'flower pots' in gilding-metal creating a two-toned piece.

From my experience casting at Phil Bear, I learnt that it is better to cast the links closed. I moulded each of the links in wax, cast them, made a mould and then cast multiples of all three shapes. I cast in copper, brass and silver so that I could play with combining the different colours because the focal point is two-toned. I planned to put together two chains; one copper the other brass both with silver details. I connected the links with jumprings. The first chain was too long so I shortened the chain making the focal point less centralized like a pendant, as seen above.

I took inspiration for my chains from Nicole Ringgold's chains to use my cast succulents except I didn't want my chain to be as fine. I looked at Louise Partain's chains next but Partain uses organic objects to create her links. In the end, my chain resembled Naomi Tracz chain's just not as heavy.

Due to the links being cast and having a mould made of them I can continually come up with new designs that incorporate the links.

Half Sunflower Pendant

 Below is half a sunflower made up from pieces of the brooch sunflower and pendant sunflower that were joined in wax and cast in sterling silver.

Bowes, K., (2021). Half sunflower pendant.

Having moulds of my large and medium sunflowers meant that I could break down the sunflower into smaller elements. I layered the parts of the flower in wax, cast them and once again made a mould of the half sunflower so I can always use it again. My 2019 platinum pendant sparked the idea of using the half sunflower as a pendant, as seen below.

Wearable Sculpture

Figure 1 shows a sculptural casting, cast in gilding-metal, attached to a beaded chain. The sculpture is comprised of a succulent and vertebra found on the beach.

Figure 1-Bowes, K.,(2021). Wearable sculpture.

 

Figure 2-Bowes, K.,(2021). Close up of the sculpture.

In 2020 I cast a vertebra I found on a beach and made a mould of. I paired the vertebra with a casting of a succulent cast from a live plant; similarly to how Nic Bladen casts using living plants. The castings were done separately but a serendipity photo of the two castings together ignited the idea of making the castings into a sculpture. 

I used my Artflow app to design how I could use beads to make the sculpture wearable. Youtube became a useful tool to learn new types of beading but I settled on using a double helix beading design similar to DNA emphasising something that is living and growing.

Above is the finished piece of the sculpture attached to the beads before the contrast can form between the vertebra which is sealed with a clear lacquer and the succulent which isn't sealed.

Venation Ring

The images below show a ring with a venation pattern cast in gilding metal.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Wearing the ring.

Bowes, K., (2021). Venation ring.

The ring started off as a collaboration with a Graphic Design student, Courtney Shelly. The collaboration required transferring an image to wax to cast a ring. As a prototype for the collaboration, I tested the transfer technique with my own venation pattern from last year. I decided to cast and clean up the prototype ring so it became a piece for my body of work.

Paper

Amy Pieterse from the Fine Art department taught me the process of making paper from the fabric. I really enjoyed making paper as it was a great break away from making jewellery. We made two batches of paper the first was blue and the second batch was made with 'white' fabric producing off-white paper, as seen in the photos below. I experimented with incorporating my skeleton leaves into the paper and painted with the dye runoff from the fabric. Making paper is something I definitely want to continue exploring.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Handmade paper.

Bowes, K., (2021). Close up of paper.

Earring spin-offs

 The image below shows a collection of sterling silver earrings inspired by my organic chain links.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Link earrings.

I played with textures and the different sized links to generate a collection of spin-off pieces from my organic chain. I made the spin-offs for the I heart market which has started up again. I also added them to my website as I do have moulds of the links and could always make them again. 

The hoop-like earrings I made were inspired by Naomi Tracz's Dalia Hoops. I know she uses her heavy marquise shape so I added a twist to my marquise set and left the other link flat as they have an interesting side profile. The Marquise studs were sold at the I heart market.

Sunflower brooch

Below is an image of a sunflower brooch that was cast in sterling silver.

Bowes, K., (2021). Sunflower brooch.

In my quest to find the right size sunflower for my earpiece, I experimented with moulding a sunflower out of wax. I doubled up the petals so that the sunflower looks full like my reference. For the centre of the sunflower, I researched the Fibonacci spiral and tried transferring the spiral onto the wax. Unfortunately, the pattern didn't translate once the sunflower was cast. I used a bur to drill divots so that the spiral changed from a pattern into a texture. The cast sunflower was far too large for the earpiece so I used it for a brooch, as seen above.