20/06/09

20/06/09 - DYMO tape

19/06/09

19/06/09 - Found Object (one of the many discarded/crushed/rusted bottle tops I have a collected along the way) and a bought finding.

18/06/09

18/06/09 - 'SOLD' - (found 'sale' sign from my place of employment) with a magnet and steel disk as fastening.  

17/06/09

17/06/09 - Reclaimed Material ( Plastic washers that come between magnets (the super super strong ones)) and Stainless Steel

16/06/09

16/06/09 - 'Bang Bang' - Found Object (fake grass) and Stainless Steel

15/06/09

15/06/09 - Found Object (Cap Gun Cartridges, what do you suppose happened to the other rounds?) and Stainless Steel.

14/06/09

14/06/09 - Found Material (some sort of poly/rubber used in the building industry) and one side of the Velcro machine.  

13/06/09

13/06/09 - Taken Material (Plastic leaf 'taken' from the bath room at GAFFA gallery on the day I moved out of the studios) and Stainless Steel 

12/06/09

12/06/09 - Reclaimed Material (a scrap of Marimekko fabric) and Stainless Steel

11/06/09

11/06/09 - Dodgy 'Scotch Bright' bought from Aldi fashioned into a speech bubble and Stainless Steel 

10/06/09

10/06/09 - Found Material (stiff and meshlike fabric, previously used to wrap a present I once received) and Stainless Steel 

09/06/09

09/06/09 - 'Annies Shoes' - Shoelace cut from a pair of very expensive shoes (given freely by Annie who runs a shoe shop across the way from my place of work) and Stainless Steel. 

08/06/09

08/06/09 - Found Object (plastic bubble blower) and Stainless Steel 

07/06/09

07/06/09 - Found Material (polypropylene 'orange' fruit bag) and bought finding 

06/06/09

  

06/06/09 - 'Fresh & Fruity' - Word cut from a Birthday Card (given by my parents, of an artwork by Robert Mcpherson) and Stainless Steel 

05/06/09

  05/06/09 - Found Object (plastic press studs) and Stainless Steel

04/06/09

04/06/09 - Found material (plastic EFTPOS rolls from a standard Commonwealth Bank Retail EFTPOS machine), stainless steel wire

03/06/09

03/06/09 - Stainless steel wire

002

002 - 'Joan's Balls' - Found object (clear plastic spheres), twine, bought findings

365 Brooches

01/06/09 - Found material (rusted metal) & stainless steel

Day one of my new project - 365 Brooches. 

Inspired by a few crafty people I've decided to produce my own '365 project', as you may have guessed, the outcome will be a brooch a day for one year! I am yet to decide if I will place some restrictions on the project i.e. only make brooches out of red materials for a week or just make it a free for all, either way this will be a full-on project. I'm pretty excited, this is going to be one huge challenge and it's really going test my staying power. 

I will probably create yet another blog to document the progress and post some images every few days, so check back to see how it all starts to ebb and flow.

for the love of blogs

This is just a quick note to thank a few bloggers who have very kindly mentioned my Black Board Brooches on their crafty, witty and interesting blogs.

Studio Home Creative - a very nicely put together design/craft/fachion etc.. blog

GRETCHENMIST - a neat little blog with a great idea the 'Saturday morning shopping list' 

Thanks ladies and keep up the good work!

Who? What? Gaffa?

The Amazing Gaffa Book!

The Wonderful Melinda Young!

The Delightful Lisa Furno!

And... Cunning Brand

Last Thursday night saw the launch of the awesome gaffa book. gaffa Gallery is an ARI (Artist Run Initiative) and is located in Surry Hills, Sydney. They have studio space out the back that houses a great group of Contemporary Jewellers (including yours truly). gaffa has been running for a few years now, so what better way to celebrate and document the achievements of the gallery than with a book! It is one sweet looking book, full of super great images and bios of the residing studio residence as well as great documentation of all the exhibitions they have held since their inception. So if you keen to grab yourselves a copy (and I know you are) just drop me a line and I can put you into contact with the Lovely Miss Kelly (co-director of gaffa) and she can sort you right out!! 

bench/space/place

Now I thought you kids might like to see where the 'magic' happens, the places/spaces/benches where I create/blog/procrastinate/cut/print/file/emmery/drink tea/ponder/glue...etc. 

1. This is my desk a home, the old family dining table - works a treat, I like to pile up books and dump stuff on it which means I don't often see much of its pretty green surface. 

2. This is my super duper $20 home made bench (thanks richard), in my super small laundry, in my not so large apartment. But you know what, it does its job, so who's to complain. 

3. This is my shared bench at gaffa with my awesome pal Sonya Scott (she's one talented little lady), now at this present time, our bench doesn't quite look like this. I may have taken this photo way back when, and Miss Scott hadn't actually moved in then, but you get the idea. At the moment, its actually much tidier and prettier than when I had the bench to myself, so perhaps i'll get organised and post a new photo real soon.

well how was that? not to painful and boring? excellent! until next time - cheers!

frankie frankie frankie!

It appears that I have made it! Well into frankie magazine that is. I would like to thank those nice folk at frankie for thinking that my work/brooches were good enough to grace their pages. This particular issue just came out on wednesday (22nd) and is full of awesome stuff - including a nice little piece about my 'handy dandy' Black Board Brooches. While i'd would preferred to be called Cunning Brand, I'll take Crafty Lady any day! I tip my jaunty hat in your direction frankie!!! Cheers!

I would suggest you go and buy yourself a copy! 

NOW DAMN IT!

Oh and if you're interested in purchasing any amount of my handy dandy black board brooches head to my etsy store and check them out! 

Hello little girl... what would you like to be when you grow up???

So I have been doing a lot of thinking of late, the main focus of that thinking is - what do I want to be when I grow up? I've just graduated in Jewellery and Object Design, but fear I don't have nearly enough skills to call myself a Jeweller and/or a Designer (I will, but will continue to feel slightly uncomfortable with the notion). What did I do for the last 3 years? What did I learn at that school of mine? These questions have been plaguing my sober thoughts for a few months now! My only reasonable response: I HAVE NO IDEA! I would like to add a side note here - I do not hold any institution accountable for my lack of  'pushing ones self ability' and accept that it was all of my own un/doing! 

I may have spent many nights out drinking and having a good old time, I may have decided to start my assignments the night before they were due, and I may have spent almost all my available workshop time distracting other students and generally getting up to no good. Apparently thats 'Art School' - but now in my slightly more mature years (4 months in the real world) I have come to realize that life is not all beer and skittles (oh but how I wish it was). I like to think I live by the motto 'no regrets' - but i've had a few, and not pushing myself and learning all a can when I had the chance, is possibly on the top of my relativity shot list.  

So today, I wrote a list, a glimpse into the future if you will, of the things I want to accomplish when I grow up. Its a pretty good list if I do say so myself, now as much as I would love to share with you, my patient and supportive audience, I think I might just keep it under-wraps for the time being. Well at least till I knock a few things off it, to prove to myself that I didn't waste all my time at 'art school' having fun, and that maybe just a few of the important facts/lessons may have seeped in by osmosis. You never know your luck in the big city!

Goodbye Blue Monday!

"If Artists would explain more, people would like art more. You realize that?"

 

This statement was made by Abe Cohen, the Jeweller to the character Kavabeekian in Kurt Vonnergut's totally ace novel Breakfast of Champions (*). Now there are almost certainly arguments to be made for either side of this statement, but I think I find myself in the affirmative camp. In many cases I tend to enjoy or appreciate art works more when I have some form of backstory/concept given to me. Some times a clue can be given in the title of the piece or perhaps in the listed materials used, such a small amount of information can be enough to gain a better understanding of a piece. But other times these pieces of information (title & materials) can bare no informative fruits what so ever, they bore some obscure reference, or even more unhelpful is the often used 'Untitled'. I also understand that Artists like to have an audience that can 'think', but in this nano second society that we live in, an artist may only have abour 10 seconds in which to gain an observers attention. Now I can hear the crowds getting restless, and yelling 'get to the point you fool', so in the tradition of the Readers Digest let me explain, there is no time, let me sum up (yes yes kids that was a Princess Bride reference). I think education is the key, the more people know, the greater their understanding and thus the greater their appreciation. Give the kids a chance!

not tonight darling!

A classic greeting card! 

Trying not to do anything rash!

It seems that I'm allergic to some form of antibiotics, I won't go into details but to say that I can't really leave the house for fear of scaring the locals. This ailment seems to be a blessing in disguise, I have caught up on quite a lot of movies and finally pulled my finger out and taken some good old fashion DIY photographs of my work. While I have already uploaded them on facebook, NOISE and Kit and Caboodle, I though I might as well add a few of them here (to my totally self-indulgent blog) as well. ENJOY!!  

Board By the Sea

Ah the things you can do with a piece of chalk and a Black Board Brooch. This brooch was purchased as a gift by a friend of my mothers (and mine) for her Aunty.  This Aunty happens to be an Artist and teaches at COFA, and according to a source (my good old mother), she goes down to the beach everyday (that could be a stretch) and sketches the landscape onto her brooch. 

Its amazing to see a piece of jewellery that I have created being used in such a way. When these brooches made their first appearance at The Terminus Project Bazaar Markets last year (which consisted of sitting all day in a pub drinking beer and selling my wares) the response was pretty amazing. One gentleman actually bought one as a means of proposing to his girlfriend.

It sure does give one a warm and fuzzy feeling in ones stomach (a good feeling that is) knowing one can bring such simple joy to people! 

Oh frankie!

Last night when I got home from attending to my civic duty (Jury Service) I had a lovely surprise in my Inbox. Jo, the editor of frankie magazine had seen my black board brooches on NOISE (another one of those sites that I have a profile on) and is keen to feature them in the magazine. Needless to say I fixed myself a drink and the danced all around the room squealing like a school girl who just made it onto the cheer squad!! 

So now i've got to get my ass into gear, get them into shops and perhaps get myself a shopfront on Etsy. As well as workout my packaging, branding and the ultimate question; how much will they cost?! And all in the next few of weeks if i want to get them into the next issue of the mag. 

I can hear the cracking of the whip now!