julia cowie
This silver necklace has a lapis drop, the Forth dolphin and a silver heart all handing from a silver-frame ring. The chain is a silver belcher chain and the clasp is my own bar and ring fastening so it is easy to wear.
The sea didn’t bring me the witch stone direct, it’s from a beach in New Zealand; the glass bead is from Czech Republic and the dolphin charm is obviously a Firth of Forth dolphin. Just putting together some individual pieces for ENOS 2019 which are sort-of sustainable as I’m not buying new stuff.
I finished this piece on Sunday. It is part of a bone counter with a little tab from an old necklace and a hammered silver ring.
I also took a photo of the rising moon as I probably wouldn’t wake up for the eclipse.
This year I’m making jewellery for Open Studios and Pittenweem Arts Festival using what I think I’ll call ‘sea-drift’. The seaweed on which the design is based was storm-cast on the beach. These ‘mermaid’ necklaces are saw pierced silver, hammered and formed. Two have moonstone drops and are oxidised, I have sent these to VAS ALIGHT 2019 in Edinburgh.
I’m trying out this copper/silver alloy bowl on a patinated mokume gane disc. I’ve tried other stands, but the bowl ‘stands’ well on its own, so I’m going for something simple that highlights the blue patina.
There will be some of my charm jewellery going to Art in the Buchat, Glenbuchat as well. I gave it a little polish and its tucked up in its boxes now waiting to charm visitors from Friday, 7th September.
I’m just back from a week learning about clever ways of making jewellery without soldering. Professor Ebendorf led the workshop and was generous with sharing his skills and knowledge of jewellery making and working with found objects. Cold connections are particularly useful when working with found objects (as well as enamel pieces)
This piece uses broken glass from the beach, but treats it as something precious. It also has a piece of mixed metal that I made at Alchimia and formed into a tube; and nettle yarn which has an Iron Age feel to it.
It was quite a challenge to get the piece balanced as the bronze artefact is heavy, so I pinned some lead into the tubing.
Sadly this simple cowrie shell necklace went missing in the post. The moral being to use padded envelopes so that it is less obvious that there might be jewellery boxes in the envelope/parcel. I hope it has a happy home somewhere.
