East Neuk Open Studios 2019

2019’s open studios has been and gone. The weather was lovely and lots of people visited; and several people bought pieces or commissioned new work.

Commissions included a charm bracelet as a gift for a niece in Canada, which included a dolphin from the Firth of Forth; and a neck piece using an piece of carved peat that was a brooch from my childhood. I’ll show progress on this piece in a later post.

A sea water patinated bowl went to a new home as did a sea drift necklace.

It’s always good to show people my work and studio and I particularly like new commissions.

sea drift necklace v

julia cowie

This silver frame-ring, Sea-drift necklace has a blue, lapis lazuli drop, a solid silver heart and a witch stone. The belcher chain and the ring and bar fastening are also silver. The reverse of the frame ring is textured using a beach stone and the necklace can be worn  either way.

sea drift iv

julia cowie

This penultimate necklace in the sea-drift ring series (for now at least) has a brass, domed, corroded washer from the beach in Cellardyke, a hollow silver bead and silver charm. It has a silver belcher chain, silver frame-ring which is textured using a stone from the beach and my ring and bar fastening.

Sea drift necklace iii

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.

Sea drift necklace II

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.

Sea-drift

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.

Seaweed necklaces

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.

Packing list NEOS 2

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.

 

Bob Ebendorf at West Dean

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.

 

100 days

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.