Egg- The Eco friendly alternative to Liver of Sulphur

So never been quite so excited about egg (other than when I've had a few too many glasses of wine the night before :)). I came across a site called ''Finishings dot com''... and through a conversations thread by jewellers found this out-
The trick here is easy peasy, hard boil an egg, break the shell and squash it a little. Then leave it for a day in an air tight container with the piece of jewellery. If the piece has not been polished it blackens in a couple of hours, if its polished it take a little longer. The areas you don't want blackened cover with tape, i used masking tape but with the moisture from the egg it just peeled off. The solder joints stayed white, but will see with my next test. This is how my test pieces turned out ;) Now to use it on actual jewellery.

the back 1 is fine silver and the front one is 925. 

Manufacturing practice- Materials

To be able to manufacture environmentally sustainable jewellery, I need to ensure my practice is sustainable. This means working eco-consciously with awareness of the negative impact my practice may have on the environment. Creating ‘sustainable’ jewellery will therefore involve primarily identifying my practice which is broken into -Materials,- Processes/Methods and -Techniques. From there I am able to adjust my practice (where need be) to implement minimal or no environmental harm.

-Materials

 “The most important characteristic of green jewellery today is ethical material sourcing, and all sourcing issues stem from one central issue: extraction.” Craig (2009 : Pg 34).

 I mainly use silver for manufacture, other materials I may sometimes include in my work are enamels and ceramics.

A. Silver

  There are two ways in which to source silver, Through either Primary or secondary refining.

-          Primary refining

            This process is whereby first time silver is extracted from the earth (this can be environmentally devastating).  

-           Secondary refining

             The silver is sourced from an already existing product (recycling, or re-melting old silver jewellery).This process uses less resources, chemicals, and energy. One-fifth of silver mined each year, worldwide, goes into X-ray film. Craig (2009 : Pg36).

I am currently buying my silver from a secondary refiner (Virgo Metals Durban- 031 207 4290). This silver has been extracted from old X-rays. 

B. Enamel

 Enamelling is a technique that was used by most of the ancient civilizations and was continued to be used throughout history and still today. Enamel is basically ground glass. It is made from an extremely friable type of glass called frit. It is coloured using various minerals or metal oxides.- I don't see any sustainable related issues to enamel itself. Although different firing methods can be more or less sustainable (that will be touched on in my techniques section).

C.Ceramics

There are many different types of clay. I will have to find out from my supplier (Kamel Kilns) a bit more about the clay's and their origins before i can comment or judge.  

 Clay can also be primarily or secondarily sourced.
-Primary clay is found at the source where it formed. In some cases areas are deforested in order for its extraction :(.
-Secondary clay is where deposits have been moved from the original  location by erosion or water.


(Different firing methods will be looked at in the techniques section as well). 

 

Jewellery for Sustainability

My intention is to manufacture jewellery using sustainable practices and techniques. I'm not really sure how to go about this just yet. I think a good place to start would be to look into primitive and ancient techniques and tools. By default they made jewellery in a "sustainable" way because they had fewer resources and no mass production abilities. I also want my jewellery to have the narrative message of what being 'green' means to me. I am passionate about sustainability through lifestyle awareness and conscious choices, so as a jeweller I'd like to do the same.

I think Jewellery's environmental footprint is made up of two factors:

1. The trade. By this i mean the process of jewellery manufacture (this has relatively small scale negative impact).
2. The raw material. Traditional jewellery generally is made from metal and stones. These are extracted from our earth through mining,(which has a significant negative environmental impact).

By breaking Jewellery's environmental impact down to two, i can focus my personal strategy for making sustainable jewellery . I can reduce my footprint by

1. Consciously choosing manufacturing processes(possibly primitive ones) and materials that are better for the environment, and
2. Sourcing low-footprint raw materials. Using recycled silver and ethically sourced stones. I am using recycled silver that has been extracted from old x-rays (a process i am keen to find out more about).

I think i may finally understand what it is that Im trying to do, hope so :) and having some fun.

Looking forward..... Where i see my work heading.

Looking forward my focus is on manufacturing jewellery in an Eco friendly way, leaving behind as little an impact as possible. By manufacturing in this way it will no doubt influence the appearance and feel of my work as i will have to cut out certain techniques and common practices (e.g kiln firing for enameling, using the ultra sonic, investment casting, maybe even down to the stardard sandpaper that us jewellers tend to go through like crazy).

My only problem here is that i actually don't yet know much about what makes all these practices "unsustainable". There is a lot of finding out that i have to do, to separate the techniques that leave a negative impact from those which are neutral.

I will continue to make leaves, as they are appropriate imagery to my theme and they make me happy. I am in the process of making a set ( necklace, bracelet, and a few variations of earrings) for the KZNSA Gallery. I am making this set as i would normally make a piece of jewelley, kiln and all. I am documenting this process in full.

Then i think a good place to start is to remake this set using different, more sustainable methods eg replacing enamelled colour leaf elements for that of green PET, and then making another set replacing those elements with found natural objects, then maybe maybe making the same piece again going back to silver but trying a technique such as repousse for the elements. All the while documenting these processes and establishing some sort of a personal method to creating Eco jewellery.

The challenge is to create beautiful therefore desirable jewellery using techniques and materials which may conventionally be seen as neither beautiful nor desirable.

Half way through the year........ looking back

So far i have spent most of this year making orders, which have mostly all been remakes of the range i took with me to Design Indaba. Through this continuous re-production i have become far better with the techniques of chasing and enamelling. I enjoy these techniques and will probably at some stage go back to them, or use them minimly with other techniques, but for now they limit my options ( in terms of "3D" form, i am only able to work on fine flat plate ).

I have not spent very much time designing and experimenting with new ideas, until recently. Working with ceramics and carving have enabled me to realize the potential in producing jewellery in a more sustainable way and with more form.

Fun with ceramics

Really enjoyed working with ceramics, and definitely intend on doing lots more, until they are good enough to use in my jewellery . For eg these carved ceramic
beads i would like to underglaze and glaze in pretty garden colours and maybe even add gold leaf to areas. To use as pendents or rings, could maybe set them in an organic way.











My first carved pot i underglazed with green and iron oxide, then glazed. For the second one i just iron oxide-ed it and then sanded it off in raised areas. prefer this look, its more natural.

I think i enjoyed the ceramics so much because it made me start to think about other options in my jewellery, because i like the idea that with carving you can create different depths/ layers on a single surface , things start to look a little more interactive rather than just flat.

I also like the idea that ceramic elements can be carved and then sand casted(primative casting). This is a sustainable form of casting and elements can be made into dies, allowing for intresting possibilitys.

Recycled silver, Recycled glass....

By looking through blogs and other peoples jewellery i noted a trend in big rings and bright colours. This, i like. Very suitable. For my fashion piece i set the glass in a simple way, i wanted the glass to be the focus, and for it to seem fairly delicate.

After making this ring, i torch fired bits of glass, once red hot, i used my steel punches to form the glass how i wanted it to look. I dig the way they turned out. Want to experiment further. Only thing, once vitrified the glass loses its sand-blasted effect (Could try tumbling with beach sand).

finding fashion...

I love walking my dogs on the beach, and the Virginia beach, where we most often walk, has crazy amounts of tumbled beach glass. As my recycled, sand blasted collection grows, i realise it's relevance in my jewellery.

Because the smokey effect on the glass is naturally beautiful, my initial idea was to use it in an obvious way (just set the glass into a silver frame). Only problem i have with this is it could be made by anyone. I felt the want to add a bit more of a "me" touch to it by bringing in a leafy pattern.

While i was playing with these ideas in my mind, we were given a project to make a "fashion Piece".

Sustainability is a contemporary issue, which has made it fashionable. yeehaa I found the fashion in me :)

Finding ways.... Heading towards sustainable jewellery practices

A while ago I was looking through the journals in our campus library, I came across a really interesting article in the Metal Smith, the 7pg article is all about manufacturing “green” jewellery. Anyways I photocopied the article and put it in my file along with all the other things I find interesting, and then forgot about it (as I tend to do).

Happy days…. It’s been recovered!

There is an irony here in that I aim to produce sustainable jewellery, yet jewellery as an art form is hugely expensive to the earth. According to The Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent Toxic Release inventory “metal mining is the worst polluting industry in the U.S , accounting for 34% of all waste disposal.” Im sure this is similarly true for South Africa.

In between manufacturing plenty of orders (not complaining) and trying to squeeze in hand-ins for my lecturer, I’ve been looking for basic ways (within my means) to head towards making sustainable jewellery (I aim towards one day being as fully eco as I can possibly be in a jewellery workshop). By sustainable I mean being environmentally friendly and eco conscious in my jewellery and life practice.

“The most important characteristic of green jewellery today is ethical material sourcing, and all sourcing issues stem from one central issue: extraction.”

I have conquered the first step (extraction-metal sourcing)!!! There are two ways to go about it.

1. Primary refining

First time metal extracted from the earth (this can be environmentally devastating). But is possible to do in an ethical “sustainable” manner.

2. Secondary refining

Metal is sourced from an already existing product (recycling the metal).

This process uses less resources, chemicals, and energy.

One-fifth of silver used each yr, worldwide goes into X-ray film. I am currently buying my silver from a secondary refiner (Virgo Metals Durban). This silver is being extracted from X-rays (will expand on the process another time).

So from here I move to the next step… Acids, I aim to use none, and need to find eco alternatives.