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

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