New SciArt Necklace

As I’ve said before, I like to challenge myself to make a new major piece at least once a year. This year’s piece is entitled In the Blood, and it appeared for the first time as part of my offereings for the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair in July. It incorporates some of the elements that I have been using, in a new way, and on a bit of a larger scale. My thoughts were about blood circulation and the movement of cells through the body via the vessel “highway”, particularly red blood cells and the prominent role of macrophages in the landscape of immunology research at the moment.

An early stage of construction

I love green tourmaline, and the colour green in general, and it’s been a while since I used any cabochon gemstones (flat bottom, usually no facets) recently, so when I came across these little beauties, I decided green it was!

The final piece: an off-shiny finish on sterling silver, with the central hand-cut hollow form filled with green needled felt and two green tourmaline cabochons.

I’ve used a bit of artistic licence here, the tourmaline set dishes are meant to represent red bloods cells, but of course, human red blood cells don’t have nuclei (although , fun fact, chicken red blood cells are nucleated!).

some sense of the scale, modeled by my lovely colleague Alexis!

A closer look at the central pendant

I was really pleased with how it turned out. Of course, I’ve already started thinking about my next large piece—I think it’s going to involve a LOT of hammering, and I’m thinking bangle……so, I should get on that!

If you love this piece as much as I do, just pop me a message to find out more. Also, if you have any questions related to immunology, I’m always up for a chat!

Giving old jewellery new life-necklace to bangle

As part of my ongoing series about remodeling old jewellery, this originally came to me as silver necklace, and the client wanted a square bangle made out of the silver. This entailed me melting down the silver into two new ingots, and then alot of hammering. I made a hinge and partially reused the box clasp from the original necklace. It was challenging working with such thick metal, but satisfying!

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The final bangle

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Started from this cool articulated necklace-I had to remove the pins and solder from each and every link in the necklace by sawing through the links before I could make my ingot- it took a loooooooong time!

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Didn’t manage to take a photo of the individual ingots, but I made two separate ingots, then had to press the metal, and hammer it out before bending them into shape. Each one is pretty thick, so there was lots of banging!

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Preparing the bangle to make a seat for the hinge.

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Hinge was attached, all that was left was to even up the lengths, put the clasp on it, and finish the metal!

I was really pleased with how this turned out, and the client seemed delighted.

Interested in something similar? All quotes for custom work are free, so why not strike up a conversation?

Inspiring Artists- Wendy Ramshaw

I find inspiration from so many places, but today, I thought I’d talk a bit about a UK Goldsmith that I particularly admire, and was a huge inspiration to me early in my goldsmithing journey. Wendy Ramshaw (who, sadly, passed away in 2018) was a successful, female goldsmith, whose work you can find all over the world.

Photo from: https://www.amandamansell.com/blogs/news/celebrating-women

There are a lot of things that I like and admire about her work, including the huge breadth in scale-from jewellery to large-scale ironwork pieces. What I remember the most are her iconic stacking ring sets that she made to be stored or displayed on unique, lathe-turned pillars. Here are a few examples: (photos from: https://benchpeg.com/qanda/wendy-ramshaw ; https://benchpeg.com/qanda/wendy-ramshaw ; and http://www.artnet.com/artists/wendy-ramshaw/2 )

Aren’t they amazing? I love the geometric lines, and the contrasts in shapes. If you can see them in person, I guarantee you will love them! Stacking rings are perennially in fashion. . They’re so great, because they offer a wide variety of combinations, and whenever I see them, I am reminded of Wendy Ramshaw.

My version of the ring stack- hammer-textured band, offset gemstone bands and a textured L form ring.

The possibilities for custom design jewellery are endless. Looking for some cool and new rings for yourself? Let’s have a conversation!

New Custom Engagement Ring

Recently, I had the extreme pleasure of being asked to make my very first bespoke engagement ring! I loved being able to be part of this special event. There was a bit of back and forth with the client to map out the specifics of what they wanted: something bi-colour, preferably a green tourmaline, nothing too wide, and they said they liked asymmetry. I then designed a ring that incorporated those things, but also that reflected the recipient’s love of botany (aka gardening), and where the couple met and fell in love-Edinburgh. What I came up with was an inlay with Scottish thistles, a bezel-set green tourmaline and an asymmetric band around the setting.

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Rendering of the ring design in two different metal arrangements, and a test cutout for the Scottish thistles.

We settled on the main metal being white gold, with the inlay in yellow gold, and I set off to construct the ring.

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I decided to cast the white gold components in 3 parts: the main band, the outer band and the bezel setting.

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Cast components before clean up

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The white band is mostly put together, and it’s the start of the yellow gold inlay.

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The ring is all put together-just the finishing left!

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Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

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Doesn’t it look fabulous on the recipient’s hand???

Getting ready to take the plunge with your special someone? Why not have something unique and special designed for the occasion-- after all, it will be with you for a lifetime (being optimistic!).

I hope this it the first of many special ring designs in my future!

Toronto Outdoor Art Fair 60 years

It’s certainly been an interesting time of late. I was just sort of getting my jewellery practice off the ground, and the pandemic hit. I had some big plans for shows and development in 2020 that, well, mostly didn’t happen. Certainly, even in 2021, alot of the shows are not really occurring, although alot of virtual events have popped up. I haven’t been participating in them, but I did apply to the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, which is a juried show.

You may or may not know about these things, but as a relatively junior goldsmith (in terms of length of career so far!), it’s a pretty big deal for me to get into a juried show.  Honestly, I think even when I’m old and grey(er), I’ll still get a big charge out of it, that’s just kind of the way I am!

Me, looking excited, you just can’t tell, because I’m wearing a mask :). Actually, it’s from a while ago, as I found out in April, but I was very excited the day I found out!

What’s a juried show? you say.  Well, a juried show means that the show/sale/exhibition is curated, and there is a competitive process involved in being accepted to participate.  You have to tell them who you are and what you’re about, you need to submit professional looking images of your work and say what you will be exhibiting/selling.  Then a panel of people looks at all the applicants and judges you (eek!). I find it a bit nerve wracking, even though it’s not (usually) an in-person process.  You just have to wait for the answer about whether you’ve been accepted or not to eventually pop up in your email. (To be honest, this is shorter than in science—I’ve written research grants that take up to a year to get an answer about, art/craft shows are usually a couple or a few months—thankfully for my finger nails!!)

The show takes place July 2nd-11th, with lots of great programming. And…..all the artists profiles are up now, so you can browse already, you just can’t buy until the show goes live! I’m pretty happy with my profile- you can see it here. I am featuring a couple of things that you can see on my shop page, but it does mostly have new work, or work that you might not have see before, so I think it’s worth checking out!

I hope you’ll join us for this legacy event! Engage with artists, browse curated collections, enjoy art talks, studio tours, and buy art from 400+ juried artists at TOAF.ca

I will be doing some special videos and social media during the show, so I hope that you will check out my instagram and facebook pages! Drop me a line if there is anything you’d specifically like to know about!

Hope to hear and/or see you soon! Stay safe!

-Robin

Old jewellery, new jewellery

I’ve been hard at work doing a number of custom pieces, which I can’t really share at the moment, as they’re not completed yet, but I did complete a couple of pieces recently that I wanted to share with you. It’s fun when a client brings me their old jewellery that they want to reimagine into new pieces.

Re-imaging jewellery you have is a good way to retain materials, but give them a new lease on life! I feel so happy to be involved in helping to remodel so many meaningful pieces!

I removed the central stone from the ring, and made it into a new bezel set floating pendant in 14k white gold. It looks stunning! The rest of the stones will go to be used in other pieces, and the gold was recycled in another piece as well!

Here, I removed the side stones (so the central stone can be used somewhere else!), and remade them into these sweet, delicate earrings, also in 14k white gold. The gold from the ring was reclaimed.

So, do you have any jewellery lurking around that you want to give a new lease on life ? Get in contact and let’s start a dialogue about remodeling your jewellery—all quotes are no-obligation and free!

Happy Sunday!

-Robin.

Construction of a New Piece

As an independent goldsmith, I make a fair number of pieces that are small batch productions, so, while they are all unique in their own way, they’re still of a similar design, and generally use similar methods.  Part of my practice, to keep exercising my creative muscles is to challenge myself to make larger pieces on a semi-regular basis.  Last year, I made this piece:

Oxidised sterling silver, 10k yellow gold, blue topaz and sapphire necklace with roller printed elements and two-tone blue needled felt. This necklace is very kinetic, and hangs about 19" long.

If you’re familiar with some of my work, you’ll see that it incorporates a lot of different elements from other pieces that I’ve made, but puts them together in a new and more elaborate way, incorporating some gold and more precious gems than I might normally use.  (If you're interested in more information about why I use these elements, you can read a bit more here.)

This year, I set myself a similar goal: to make a larger, statement piece, that incorporates a lot of elements that I normally use, in a larger format, and incorporating or extending my skills at the same time.  This piece presented some challenges for me, in terms of the physical construction, because I couldn’t use a lot of my normal techniques to create the individual pieces.  This made it a lot of fun (I like practical problem solving/troubleshooting), but also rather frustrating at times. 

Some pictures of the necklace in process

starting to put the elements together

One down, one that needs alot of laser welding to get it together!

Just the finishing to go!

This necklace is part of my sci/art collections, and is entitled Invaders/Defenders. Since it is more specifically an art jewellery piece, the design is associated with different symbolism for me.  The piece has two different finishes.  The oxidised/dark element represents the infectious invaders, with the mostly oval cabochon sapphires being reminiscent of a bacterial shape, and the random placement showing some of the disorder that happens in the infection process.  In contrast, the matte silver/light element represents the immune cells that defend against infection and disease, with the incorporation of texture and irregular cutouts. The more organic nature of the circular shape of the two larger elements reflect the cellular/tissue environment where these biological entities interact, and the two elements are united in a continuous loop with a steel cable, as the different sides of this process are irrevocably linked in biology.

The final piece and an impression of the scale. The two main elements are made of sterling silver, with sapphire cabochons, roller printed elements, seed freshwater pearl beads, and deep blue needled felt.

I’m really pleased with the overall effect of the piece, what do you think?  Would you be interested in some smaller pieces in a similar style of one of the elements, perhaps as a brooch or a pendant?

You can contact me here to start a dialogue about this piece, and commission a new work.  I look forward to your comments.

Have a great Sunday!

-Robin

Covid, Immunology and Jewellery

I thought I’d share a window display that I did just at the beginning of Lock down in Toronto.  Little did I know when I agreed to do the display that it would be relevant to the current situation, so I thought I’d talk today about where you can find some information that might better help you understand how your body fights infections, like COVID-19, as well as a bit about the genesis of my collection.

As you may know (or not), I have a PhD in immunology, the very important part of physiology that protects the body (or “host”) against infection, and some diseases.  As I’m sure you’ll agree, in our current crisis, it’s particularly relevant to the concerns on everyone’s mind about COVID-19.  I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail about information about the immune system here, there are a lot of good pages like this Canada.ca webpage that will give you give information. Or the British Society for Immunology has this great series of pages called “Bite sized Immunology” which breaks a lot of different concepts into understandable sections with some colourful graphics to help make things more comprehensible.

Basically, the immune system is your own personal army that protects the body (to the best of its ability!) against infection (among other things).  At its most basic, you can think of it being composed of two parts, the initial, less specific response that is immediate and a delayed response that is much more specific for an individual infectious agent, but it takes a while to kick in. It is the latter response that is what vaccination takes advantage of to confer protection against productive infection. Once you’ve been vaccinated, your immune system effectively goes straight to the specific response for that invader, quickly and effectively killing it off before it is able to exponentially reproduce in the body (or, if you like, stopping it in its tracks!).

One of the interesting things about cells in general, and immune cells in particular, is that you can stain them with coloured dyes that make the smaller structures in the cell more visible.  This allows visibility, and identification by shape, stain colour, and appearance:

A blood smear stained with two dyes, the light red cells are, not surprisingly, red blood cells (with their characteristic “donut” appearance). The violet and purple cells are cells of the immune system.

Different kinds of immune cells

I’ve always been fascinated by the shapes of stained blood cells, I find them visually interesting, as well as artistically inspiring. About 10 years ago, I first had my inspiration for the current collection of different jewellery pieces. I was at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, working as a Research Fellow, and the Veterinary School wanted to put on an art show. I wanted to participate, since it combined my two passions (art and science!), and after alot of sketching, I had a whole host of ideas. Ultimately, the exhibition didn’t happen, but the ideas never went away!

Fast forward to last year, and I started seriously working on new pieces combining my love of immune cells and my love of textiles! If you were out and about in April, you might have seen a selection of pieces on display. It’s not on anymore, so you’ll have to be satisfied with my pictures!

Window with “L” series jewellery

(The “L” stands for lymphocyte)

Centre piece: “Defense of Life” combines both “M” and “L” units. Made out of sterling silver with a central 10kt yellow gold ring with rubies and an orange sapphire, and orange and red needle felt, this piece was originally designed to be an exhibition piece. Many of my other pieces are composed of elements that make up this special showpiece.

Window with “M” series jewellery

(The M stands for macrophage)

Visit my shop page to see more of the pieces that are available for sale, or contact me to talk about a design just for you!

Of course, I’m not a Public Health person, but I can help with questions about immunology in general, or point you in the direction of where to find good, reliable information about the pandemic, you just need to ask! I always find that information helps to lessen panic and fear, which we could all do with less of in this situation (panic and fear, not information!).

So, stay safe, stay healthy, and hope to see you soon!

-Robin.

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Re-learning Toronto, and finding inspiration in architecture

I notice a lot of things, and I like looking at a lot of different sceneries.  One of my favourite (but not often enough exercised) things, is landscape photography.  In contrast, I’ve also always enjoyed looking at urban landscapes and appreciate intricate and interesting architecture.

As some of you may know, I lived in the UK for some time.  While there, I had the privilege of doing a fair amount of traveling.  One of the things I love to do when I visit new places is to wander the city/ lanscape, exploring and soaking in the visual appearances. Here are some of my (very few of them) favourite buildings:

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-qksky

Casa Battlo, Barcelona

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54771565@N03/43396063012

Musee D’Orsay, Paris

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MuseeOrsay_20070324.jpg

I could show you a gazillion more, but I don't have that kind of time to track down all my photos! But here's just one more of a typical architectural feature that I used to constantly see around Scotland.

Crow-stepped Gable, Scotland

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crow-stepped_gable,_Crail_-_geograph.org.uk_-_950435.jpg

When I first moved back to Toronto, I spent alot of time wandering the city getting to know it again. It was an incredible experience for me, and I spent alot of time just looking (and a little bit of capturing!). These are some of the things that have particularly caught my eye:

Now all of those shapes and features are rolling around somewhere in the back of my brain. Eventually, I'll start sketching some new pieces based on all these features, and from there, develop them into new jewellery. Not sure when, but they'll appear eventually. When they do, you can be sure that I'll share them with you!

Intrigued? I know I am! I never quite know what my brain is going to come up with until it appears. Some things are like a bolt of lightning, others are like this--they need a certain amount of work before they become real designs!

Stay safe and healthy, and I look forward to seeing you all when society is more open again. Want to connect sooner than that? Email me, let’s start a conversation! Or find me on Instagram .

-Robin

The Earring Show 2020

As some of you may know, I haven’t been in “business” for long yet. So, as you might imagine, Covid-19 is not really helping me! I’ve already had to forgo participating in one show (which hopefully will still happen in the Autumn-so more info on that in the future!), and I was due to start teaching workshops at the Jewel Envy studio, where I am a resident goldsmith, both of which have somewhat derailed the progress I was hoping to make this year. However, in the midst of all my doom and gloom, back in late March, I had a glimmer of excitement!

Part of my professional development this year is to apply to exhibitions (where and when I can!). I had put in an application in early March to the Craft Council BC to participate in their annual Earring Show exhibition. To my delight, I was accepted! Of course, it was supposed to be a physical exhibit, which is not now happening. But the Council was very proactive, and they’ve managed to organise an exciting virtual event on Zoom and Facebook ths Satuday, May 9th, 2020.

It’s a tough time for all of us, but attending (and telling your friends about it!) the event is a good way to support artists and local business-and who knows, you might find something you love in the exhibition (everything will be available for sale from the day of the exhibition).

These are my earrings that are featured in the exhibition-They’re my Asymmetric M form earrings. Made out of sterling silver and needle felt (I love the pop of colour and the contrasting texture the felt pad gives these pieces!), they’re one of a kind (although I do small production of this design), and because of the construction, they’re very light to wear, but still make a statement.

This is another version of my earrings. These are inspired by the macrophage/monocyte cell of the immune system (yes, I am a science geek!). When they are stained, they have cool nucleus shapes, which inspire the cutouts I make in my pieces. Although I reproduce this design, each pair of earrings are one-of-a-kind, as I handcut the domes using one-use hand-drawn templates, the elements are placed slightly differently on the curved wires, the felt inserts are available indifferent colours, and the earrings are available in different finishes. They retail for $180 (CAD) + HST. Fancy a pair? Email me to order

Hope to “see” you this Saturday!

-Robin