Maybe we're all born with a spoon of some kind in our mouth?

It must be in the blog air, the reminiscing about our paths to jewellery and looking at the very early work (something that's still very recent for me, a latecomer to the field). I had just been thinking about my first silversmithing pieces and how I got here when I was further inspired by the recent posts by Melissa Cameron and Karen, Melissa (previously a designer) talking about the events that lead her to seriously pursue jewellery as a career, and Karen (the amazing host of Melbourne Jeweller blog) showing her first year, first semester RMIT silversmithing pieces.

So here's something from my first months at RMIT in 2008 when we were introduced to silversmithing by the lovely Beatrice Schlabowsky. The making of a copper spoon from scratch was especially a tough one for me, and I remember being very proud at the end, of having been able to forge something that resembled a cutlery piece even vaguely. I'm always amazed and impressed when I now see other spoons from the first year projects – they're so beautifully designed, all really original, and perfectly finished! (This is not to say we weren't taught well, but more a realisation that while some possess natural abilities for shaping metal, others like me have to learn them from the very, very, very beginning! : )

Our briefs that semester were to design and make a "Filter" and "Spoons". Here's some:



Seven Characteristics in Spoons (2008)
Stainless steel teaspoons, steel wire, adhesive (yes! supaglue!), magnet, shrink wrap
These seven spoons are a playful take on modifying an industrial object, always identical in the hundreds and thousands that are produced, to speak about individual tendencies.

I thought about the states of being 'Discontent', 'Enlightened', 'Charismatic', 'Self-Obsessed', 'Fragile', 'Pessimistic' and 'Optimistic'. See if you can spot which is which.

Looking at this image has also given me an idea for something that a friend in the virtual sphere, Eddy, asked me to do a while ago …



Japanese Laundry (2008)
Roller-embbossed copper, brass, black pebbles, thread, glass
This was my filter. I can't remember exactly anymore what the rationale for being a filter was, but somehow I arrived at a mobile-like solution that plays with the sense of gravity and proportion. It has stony weights hovering just above the ground, attached to the wing of a mute and blind house (no entry, no exit, only form). The oxidised tones and patterns of copper and brass reminded me of silk, and the black pebbles of garderns; water of East – the reasons for the name. I wanted to present the piece standing on a pond, for the reflection – so I placed it on a tray with cardboard and water for the assessment. Oops … spillage and tearing that I can now laugh about … Here's a detail from a picture I took later on:



Then, there was a spoon that I created on the morning of assessment, in the usual panic.
But I like it! Maybe it's dedicated to Yoko Ono?




Breathe (2008)
Qantas plastic spoon, nylon netting,
grapevine twig, mother of pearl, copper

And then a few cast spoons:


Atmo-sphere (2008)
A gasket and a plastic Qantas spoon cast in fine silver



Childhood (2008)
Thread lace and wax – this image is taken before casting in fine silver



And finally, a nameless copper spoon that I will keep forever : )

a tiny postcard from another planet

I think it's a map.

Some interesting things happened today

Enamel on steel, enamel on aluminium, aluminium on steel – resting and fused ...

our winter window

I love how this vine made its way to the front room last spring;
over summer, it grew tall, through the little cracks in the old wood.

It now covers the little spectators, always at the window,
observing life on the street passing by. An ancient Latvian woman
knitted the yellow duck a long time ago.

A winter blanket : )

still there

all these weeks on

Kauas pilvet karkaavat

From Union Street to Collier Crescent
Brunswick West, July 25

Onnellista syntympäivää numero 66 äidille!

Carlos Saura's "Carmen" 1983

Christina Hoyos and Laura Del Sol clash in one of the best scenes in one of the best dance films ever made – Carlos Saura's Carmen (1983).

It's cold here in Melbourne but watching this might help in getting warm (if not HOT) again!

PS. For a better quality clip, but without the beginning with the female singers, and without subtitles, click here: Carmen / Factory scene

Wedding ornaments for another time 1: Drought

Photography: © RMIT University, Melbourne 2008 >

Wedding ornaments for another time 1: Drought (Inari Kiuru 2008)
shower cable, brass taps, 925 silver, 18ct gold, found objects
fused, soldered, fabricated

Please click on the image if you want to see detail clearly - here the photo condenses into a very pixelated one for some reason!


While still photographing work from this semester and the year gone, this is something from the recent past, one of the four pieces designed and made during the traditional "fusion" project at RMIT, on our first year 2008, then taught by Mr Robert Baines. The idea was to create a neck piece which incorporated gold embedded in silver (we learned the whole process from melting granules to gradually rolling the sheet of gold and silver into a thin layer), fused sterling silver pieces (= no solder, metal joined by heat only, at the right melting point), mixed with modern materials.

My work for the brief evolved into a four piece collection of rather large "wedding ornaments" (this was the semester preceding my own wedding, hence perhaps the theme … :), imagined to belong to a future time where environmental or another catastrophe might have changed our living conditions, circumstances, and available resources significantly.

The first piece is titled "Drought", something I had been thinking about a lot at the time, after a move from Perth to Melbourne – here, we faced serious water restrictions for the first time in our lives.

meanwhile, winter afternoons

The occasional shower of sunlight feels so welcome at this time.

Blogger glitch?

There must be, or have been, something going on with the Blogger software, as my yesterday's post (Magpie by Luke Davies and Inari Kiuru) with its follow-up comments only seems visible for those who are subscribing to ordinari observations via RSS.

Mysterious!

I'll try and post again today and see how it goes.
Apologies!

x IK

and just when you mean to tell her