Month: May 2021

       Material experimentation is the key for my project. There is no specific political comment within this street jewellery collection. This decision gives me the chance to fully explore different possibility within the casting technique. My experimentation lacks originality. It is due to the lake of primary research. I haven’t found street object’s common feature, which may help view make direct link to the street. Through out my observation there is no common sense within street objects apart from their ruined forms.

        People’s perception to streets are different. Perhaps labeling each found objects is the best way to documenting each objects’ life cycle. Based on my CRP I realized that jewellery itself hardly driven viewers thought if it doesn’t relate to specific political issue. As my intension is to bring viewers’ thought around jewellery’s material value by looking at the combination of poor street objects and precious metal. The stronger the visual contrast is the more attention will bring from viewers. Moving away from expressing my personal view on political issue makes my project more sensible and more acceptable by my audiences. It also allows me to engage with material experiments.

       The artist research of Tim Kowalczyk highlights the importance of objects functionality. In consideration of his works’ aesthetic, it is hard to understand why people would spend money on cheap looking home wear rather than the luxury ones. My jewellery is made from precious metal so at least people will attracts by its material although it looks cheap. At the moment there is less design element within my pieces. I have to work harder on material expression. Or I have to observe street object’s uniqueness with my own sensible eyes.

       It is also important to find a sensible way to combine body with street object. Wearers may make connection with the street by wearing unwanted objects.     

24^th May

The twisting bracelet didn’t win in this year’s competition. The feedbacks helps me reflect on my design process. Pewter is a heavy material for jewellery. The bracelet composed of symmetrical forms. Soldering 1mm pewter sheet together will be a lot lighter than casting 3mm thick bracelet in an open mold. Especially I cannot control bracelet’s top bits thickness when the mold is open, and hot pewter liquid flows in any direction, which increase bracelet’s thickness. This failure experience helps me understand the importance of choosing the right process.

       The digital submission makes me think the physical weight is not that important for judges to consider. However, in the long run I must consider bracelet’s weight make sure its wearable while brings optical illusion to wearers. I shouldn’t see the digital submission as an excuse for not trying out new technique. Instead, I will keep experiment with this idea by soldering metals together and placing acrylic sheet on the top part to reduce its weight.  Acrylic sheet may contrast with metal’s shinney texture. Catch viewer’s attention on its layers.

I went to a charity shop that helped with homeless. Asking if I can display my jewellery in their space. The shop manager is happy for me to do the display, but she is concerned with jewellery’s small scale won’t catches costumer’s attention and it might get stolen. Based on my pervious display experience. I decide to attach jewellery on casted hands grab attention by increasing object’s scale.

Using hand is a quick response when answering the shop manager. However, hand is hardly fit with my concept of the street observation. I still need to figure out other display option. I will look at the display from contemporary jewellery exhibition as a reference. I will also think about shop’s layout and the colour arrangement. Next time I will come up with a display proposal before I talk to the space owner.      

      

To cast rings in wax I need to make molds that are half open. Hot wax liquid flow vertically, if I pour it from top of the open mold, it will fill in the entire mold. Rings were stuck on the board and silicone was poured to cover them. Once the mold cured it was heated, this heat helps hot wax liquid catches most detail of ring’s texture. Wax flows better in the open mold as most of rings come out in complete forms.

However, the drawback of this mold is that I need to do extra finishing works such as melts down wax infill. I need to pay extra attention on this finishing process otherwise hot sculpting tool will burn away ring’s main body causing imperfection. I tend to make contrast by combining geometrical rings with hand tear cardboard’s random shapes. If rings lost their perfection during this finishing stage, then its contrast with cardboard will be weaker. Moreover, the open side of the mold won’t catch any texture of the rings, so I must reheat ring’s open side and press it on cardboard’s textured surface. I can’t press cardboard on the hot ring while it was in the mold because it will ruin the cast.  

Broken glass found on street were added to silicone model to cast with pewter. I am quite pleased with the material combination. Pewter’s shinney surface merges well with coloured glass. However, their materiality is hardly representing street objects’ unwanted feeling. Although glass was found on street and pewter is in cardboard’s form. When transfer it into different material it reminds me of coral or rocks. So, I decide to combine cardboard with pewter making stronger contrast. Once pewter poured into the mould cardboard was partly covered by it.

 This experiment works quite well, and I decide to collect different types of street object and be more experimental with jewellery’s forms. Unfortunately, cardboard is not waterproof as one solution, I will brush shellac on its surface make it last longer. Furthermore, I will ask wearers’ wearing experience and their sentimental connection with my piece.

I casted cardboard ring in wax, however they didn’t come out that well. To make sure hot wax can flew into the silicone mold. I must make sure the original objects are at least 3mm thick. Although the digital ring file is 3mm thick when they printed out in PLA their sizes shrinked. Next time, I will draw the object as 5mm thick.

 Molds were heated up for wax to flow inside. Comparing to Bronze casting, producing wax casts is a lot quicker. After hot wax poured into mold it was quite hard to get it out. If the original object is thicker, it should be easier. Wax wasn’t working for this mold, so I tried pewter, which reaches higher temperature than wax. There were two jewellery came out nicely in pewter. Holes were cut in the middle of the mode for pewter liquid flew better. Because I wasn’t fully understood mold’s structure. Some holes were made in the wrong place. Next time I will cut them in different position from the main one.