Mariposa / Butterfly: New work, 5

mariposa / butterfly (inari kiuru 2010)
mild steel, enamel, 18c gold, 925 silver

Out of the fire: New work, 4

1. Enamel added, waiting for the kiln

Now here's a piece of work I have quite mixed feelings about!

This piece is based on a simple black and orange close-up portrait of a cajon player, and while the design, model making and welding of the mild steel for the pendant went all smoothly, the rest of the process was riddled with trouble. Or shall we say CHALLENGE.




2. Fired pendant with enamel painted and fired orange back
3. The textured back of the main pendant part

After firing the main pendant, everything was looking OK and I liked the textured back that shows the brushstrokes as dark marks on oxidised steel. I would have been happy to leave the design at this, but thought that an extra layer would bring solidity, and I could avoid riveting the necklace attachment directly onto the pendant.



3. Back of the back, clear liquid enamel on steel, 925 attachments soldered


Soldering the silver bars to the back of the orange base (seen from the front, painted with orange, red and yellow enamel paints), to be riveted to the pendant, however was a real adventure: I had to use IT solder for it to last the heat of a kiln. On steel, making the "harder than hard" IT solder go required a true blast of heat. Luckily, nothing melted though – at this stage.

Then it came to riveting the pendant onto the base. It had warped slightly due to the many layers and firing process, so the rivets had to be firm and a little longer than usual to keep the pieces together safely and without bending the parts, thus risking breakage of the enamel layers. First I tried to hammer the ends of the rivets (1.2 mm 925 wire with 18c gold balls at the ends; this too was a bit of an accident, but gold's not so bad ; ), but found that I couldn't position the pendant anywhere securely enough, for the brisk and accurate hammer blows the riveting process requires. This I'm sure is dependent on my skill level, not the actual logistics of the piece, but neverthless, it was late at night, and …



5. The same back, after some … eventful events …

At this stage I'd used microtorch exactly once in my life. Somehow, in my desperation, I got an idea to ball BOTH ends of the wire. We had talked about this, speculating if it would work neatly should the rest of the piece be immersed in water. But no time for water at this stage, straight to the flame! The first rivet was successfull … until I smelled something burning … Yes, it was the orange enamel paint on the other side I'd forgotten about!!

I took a look and had to be optimistic in those "am" hours; I thought that a bit of flaking and ash might look OK. Hehe. "The fire of flamenco"??!

So then I decided to ball the rest of the rivets, too. What the heck! I could always repaint the enamelled orange side, as I ended up doing. But for some reason, the wire would not make a ball this time, no matter how hot I had the microtorch flame on! I even tried with a bigger torch, but to no avail. Everything just melted into soft hills. So, I decided that this shall be the look, then. Don't anyone dare call me a perfectionist, or INflexible! : P The final rivet is hammered in a traditional way, it was in the outside edge of the layers, so I could somehow manage.

After this treatment, the beautiful back was stained with black marks and melted silver. You can kind of see that for yourself in the photo. I thought that a slight sand / polishing might help it look more together, and was happily surprised that the marks from enamelling still came through after emerying the back quite heavy-handedly. Otherwise, it's a mess! : D

And the chain?
I made one, but am not happy with it really. So I'll re-make it over the break, and then present before and after images.

xx IK

A las cinco de la tarde / At five in the afternoon: New work, 3

LORCA
Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (for the death of a bullfighter)

Cogida and death / fragment

At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone
at five in the afternoon.




The wind carried away the cottonwool
at five in the afternoon.
And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Now the dove and the leopard wrestle
at five in the afternoon.
And a thigh with a desolate horn
at five in the afternoon.
The bass-string struck up
at five in the afternoon.




Arsenic bells and smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Groups of silence in the corners
at five in the afternoon.
And the bull alone with a high heart!
At five in the afternoon.
When the sweat of snow was coming
at five in the afternoon,
when the bull ring was covered in iodine
at five in the afternoon.
Death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Exactly at five o’clock in the afternoon.



A coffin on wheels in his bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ears
at five in the afternoon.
Now the bull was bellowing through his forehead
at five in the afternoon.
The room was iridescent with agony
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance the gangrene now comes
at five in the afternoon.



Horn of the lily through green groins
at five in the afternoon.
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon,
and the crowd was breaking the windows
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon!
It was five by all the clocks!
It was five in the shade of the afternoon!




A las cinco de la tarde, a series of brooches (Inari Kiuru 2010)
mild steel, pva, paint, resin, crystal, salt


Last year I took some photos of an afternoon sky, at five in the afternoon, thinking about this poem by Federico Garcia Lorca. These brooches are my interpretation of the absolute darkness and blinding light the words of the lament evoke.

Robert Motherwell's paintings, the 1950 At Five in the Afternoon and his Elegies to the Spanish Republic also inspired me.

Click on the images for a larger, more detailed view.


La Cogida y La Muerte

A las cinco de la tarde.
Eran las cinco en punto de la tarde.
Un niño trajo la blanca sábana
a las cinco de la tarde.
Una espuerta de cal ya prevenida
a las cinco de la tarde.
Lo demás era muerte y sólo muerte
a las cinco de la tarde.

El viento se llevó los algodones
a las cinco de la tarde.
Y el óxido sembró cristal y níquel
a las cinco de la tarde.
Ya luchan la paloma y el leopardo
a las cinco de la tarde.
Y un muslo con un asta desolada
a las cinco de la tarde.
Comenzaron los sones de bordón
a las cinco de la tarde.
Las campanas de arsénico y el humo
a las cinco de la tarde.
En las esquinas grupos de silencio
a las cinco de la tarde.
¡Y el toro solo corazón arriba!
a las cinco de la tarde.
Cuando el sudor de nieve fue llegando
a las cinco de la tarde
cuando la plaza se cubrió de yodo
a las cinco de la tarde,
la muerte puso huevos en la herida
a las cinco de la tarde.
A las cinco de la tarde.
A las cinco en Punto de la tarde.

Un ataúd con ruedas es la cama
a las cinco de la tarde.
Huesos y flautas suenan en su oído
a las cinco de la tarde.
El toro ya mugía por su frente
a las cinco de la tarde.
El cuarto se irisaba de agonía
a las cinco de la tarde.
A lo lejos ya viene la gangrena
a las cinco de la tarde.
Trompa de lirio por las verdes ingles
a las cinco de la tarde.
Las heridas quemaban como soles
a las cinco de la tarde,
y el gentío rompía las ventanas
a las cinco de la tarde.
A las cinco de la tarde.
¡Ay, qué terribles cinco de la tarde!
¡Eran las cinco en todos los relojes!
¡Eran las cinco en sombra de la tarde!

More odd brooches: New work 2010, 2

These brooches were made as an addition to our semester work, to the odd-series , as I lost one of the earlier pieces in a plane, and broke two by... stepping on them! Oops! : /

The idea of the project was to experiment with a material – my focus was melting and fusing different types of plastics, and combining them with other materials.








Odd 5 Inari Kiuru 2010
resin, paper, enamel paint, 925, stainless steel



Odd 6 Inari Kiuru 2010
PVA glue, resin, paint, found object (thermostat from our now ex-rice cooker)



Odd 7, Summer Inari Kiuru 2010
Plastics, crayon, paint, stainless steel, brass wire

Click on the images for a larger and more detailed view

self portrait with sudden ears

This morning,
I woke up at 5 am.
To my surprise,
with new ears.

Winter ears?

waiting for the fire

"What comes out
must go in"

From the past weeks' experiments with enamel on mild steel, objects and a pendant waiting to be fired in a kiln. They look very different pre and post the heating process. I've just finished a series of work, including the vessels above, for our first semester assessment at RMIT – I'll post some images of the final work over the weekend.

When I wake up, that is. And now back to writing an essay which will be 24 hours late : /

PS.
More enamel on steel experiments here (samples from the Elizabeth Turrell workshop in Perth, Western Australia in April), and here (the first jewellery pieces I made at RMIT using welded mild steel and liquid enamels).

I also just recently discovered Suzanne Beautyman's work, and am simply in awe of her use of the media of metal and enamel.

One hundred rings of solitude

Life as a jewellery student, part 2:

This work belongs to a first year project at RMIT for which I made myself a set of rules: No drawing or sketching (my usual escapes), just model making from materials that might be unfamiliar to me, seeing if I could create one hundred different rings. How many I ended up with? 80? I still haven't counted.

I remember that all this began from turning wire in a state of confusion about what a "contemporary look" might be, a concept so prevalent in the first year "art jewellery" discussions. I thought at the time that if I blast out something highly asymmetric, warped and quite monochromatic, preferably black and plasticky, avoiding precious metals, surely I'll succeed – in an ironic way. But as I kept working, the pissed-offness at the notion of "contemporary = cliched" wore off, and the project became a fun experiment which I still like to look at.

Confusion remains, but in such a different way now : )

– Click each row if you'd like a closer look –

A Mysterious Disappearance: New work, part 1

"All we know about your great grandmotheris that, apparently one day,she wandered off into the snowand never came back.

They say she was wearing
nothing but
her favourite pieces of jewellery.

And a hat."

















Into the snow (Inari Kiuru 2010)
Pendant, Earrings, RingFound objects (rusted can lids, a driven-over jeans' button, two squashed safety pins that I altered into mini-ornaments, resin, cotton thread with araldite, 18c gold, brass, enamel paint

So, our first semester of the year is over! As promised, I'll post pictures of my work over the weekend, and will start with the smallest of the pieces made.

This project for our Jewellery subject at RMIT was to re-create a "lost" piece of jewellery. My inspiration was the above photo and the images I got when inspecting the white resin pieces I had made earlier as a part of a material investigation. The rusted parts were in the collection of my found objects, as was the ring stand and the parts to make the ring; they seemed to go beautifully together.

PS. Sunday 27 June: Sorry for random addings of images – I'm archiving the work for myself as well as recording it here, and updating the posts as I have a chance to clean up images etc.
: )

Click on the images for a larger view and better detail.
photo © Harvey Brothers (?)