A post a chapter - 1 Old for New

I have read through most of Julia Manheims' book Sustainable Jewellery.  This research will fall into my first factor- The Trade- manufacturing process and materials used(other than metals, which will fall into 2. raw materials). Manheim talks about the different aspects of what makes jewellery sustainable.

 I have summarized her basic sub catagories which are explained in detail in each chapter, although some of  which have little relevance to my intention. Its still seems important that i look into what other people see as sustainable jewellery. I will look deeper into the relevant ones, and find other examples outside of the book to back it up further.

1. Old for New - Recycling existing jewellery, altering it, wearing it differently, melting it down and re working it,cutting it up, adding to it or covering it up. This chapter considers ways in which the jewellery can be reinvented even by simply changing the sentiment or idea behind it.

Siblings,necklace, Lin Cheung,2003. Silver,gold.

What does sustainable mean......... & In terms of jewellery.

I have found a few simple definitions of Sustainable that i find most relevant.

• Sustainability the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources and thereby supporting long term ecological balance.
• Sustainable a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continued re-use. - able to be maintained or kept going, as an action or process.

The UN took a look into global environment problems in 1983 and came up with this effective definition - That which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In relation to jewellery i would put 'needs', because there is no real need for jewellery. In Bruce Metcalfs' paper On The Nature of Jewellery he talks about the five functions of jewellery:

1. Attachment to the body
2. Personal decoration
3. Social identity/status
4. Portable wealth
5. Spiritual

 I see my jewellery predominately fitting under Personal decoration- visually stimulating in terms of colour, contrast and texture. As well as social identity/status- social perceptions- The type or style of jewellery a wearer chooses often speaks for them within a social grouping or stereo type. i think Narrative jewellery would also fall under this 'function', some of my work is narrative. From this I suppose i need to create my own jewellery specific definition of sustainability.......   ah in time, it will come :)

Eg This simple pierced pendant of mine not only serves as decoration but would also say something about the wearer who chooses it, most likely a nature lover. 

Julia Manheim "Sustainable Jewellery"

Now that Ive established the two main factors i need to tackle to make my jewellery more "sustainable", I need to find other jewellers who are doing similar things and see how they go about it. I am finding it quiet difficult to find jewellers working with this concept. Luckily there is Julia Manheims book "Sustainable Jewellery". I am going to start with Manheims book, And look at her different concepts of sustainable jewellery, what it means to other artists and how they go about it. Looking at it from a broader perspective first and then by process of elimination rule out and then bring in what i mean by sustainable jewellery. From there i'll work out how im going to execute my practices.

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.

"Autumn" - Bangle.

A page from my design book; some ideas for the bangle  Im working on. I don't draw all that much, so i use my sketches only as a starting point for an idea, then just make the piece as I go, I feel more comfortable working that way. Sometimes it evolves drastically, and sometimes slight. I would like it to look somewhat like a bed of leaves on the ground in autumn. Layered, with all different types of leaves. Some leaves will be 925 and some in fine silver, different techniques used to create the different leaves as well, for contrast.  I imagine the final piece to have a rough look to it. I've decided Im going to start naming my pieces, like art , as i like to think of my work as                  Jewellery Art. This piece will be called "autumn".

Getting set up at home....

OK, so my bench at home is all set up and ready to go. I have made loads of bracelets but never really made a bangle, a big bangle...(surprising coz i love to wear them) Im going to pierce and chase different leaves and branches from plate and solder them layered together to form a bangle. I am using the leaf designs carved on the ceramic pots i made ( last yr sometime), as a sort of reference guide. Lets see how it goes, not sure if i have any expectations of how it may turn out. Just reckon for now i just want to get warmed up and manufacture a finished piece of jewellery, something I've never made before. KEEN!

5 months of JoY*

Shoooooooo... have been out of it for a long while. I have a beautiful little girl to show for it though :) My daughters name is Graciela Joy, (aka gracie or boepsie) with her fathers surname Greene. Have spent the last 5 months enjoying being a mama full-time, but think i am now ready to get back into my groove a little and be once more, a maker of things; among them a jeweller. So I'm back on it!

Another trip to Botanical Gardens

This time, instead of taking a million pictures of a million different plants that i don't know and usually don't end up using. I went for a more structured approach and went strait to the indigenous trees section and gathered and photographed the leaves of the trees i would most like to use as a reference to my Jewellery. I also picked up a variety of dry leaves off the floor, i find these so beautiful the way they decompose, slowly -starting by curling inwards to eventually withering away where there is only a vein skeleton left, reminds me somewhat of rust.

Indigenous Plant Market at botanical gardens

A very useful and interesting outing. Unfortunately i only got there on sunday afternoon and lots of the plants were sold out, and almost ALL the aloes, which is what i intended to buy most of. I still managed to get photos of a wide variety of saplings. Amongst them i have a few favorites. One of them being the Large-Leaved Rock fig which has significance to me as i have memories of it from when i lived in Mozambique. Been thinking about that one for a while but wasnt sure what it was, finally i found the name of it :). Am going to use this one as a reference for my next piece.

My design and manufacture process.

I think that probably most designers across all fields have an area of their design or manufacture process that is most relevant or important to them, their work or their message/point. I think the area that is most relevant and important to me at this point is my manufacturing process. My designs also hold some relevance to my topic as i see the leaf as sort of a symbol for anything eco related, but without a sustainable eco manufacturing process my message is nothing, just an image of a leaf. I aim to get to a point where the manufacturing process of my jewellery leaves as little an environmental impact as possible, and one day hopefully none :).

I also find that as the manufacture of my jewellery becomes more sustainable, i want my designs to have more of a purpose as well. For this reason i have slightly changed my design approach, instead of just using an image of a stylized leaf shape (which started to get a little boring). I'm starting by using the leaves of indigenous trees as a referance.

Creating a pod by form folding.

Trying to make a pod.... looks a little more like an oyster though. Will try form folding starting out with different shapes and see where it takes me.

trying out fold forming

I cut a marquise shape out of .4mm fine silver plate, then folded it in half. Left hand side, forged along the fold and right hand side forged along outside edge. metal moves opposite directions, changing the shape. once opened the one on the left forged along the fold becomes concave shape whilst the other convex type shape. i think this would be an effective technique to use to create pods.

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.

Designing for a customer...

A (then potential) client contacted me to custom design and manufacture a ring for her. As she is in Cape Town and myself in Durban, she sent me a mail with sort of what she wanted.... A ring that fits over two fingers (index and ring), her finger sizes and that she wanted a layered type flower on top one finger and a leaf on the other ( all i knew was what leaf she wanted, as she referred to another piece of mine).

This was quite a challenging task as i didn't know her at all, and didn't send any sketches or ideas back and forth. She trusted that with the little info she gave me, i would make her something that she would love. No pressure! This was a clients idea that i had to translate into a design from my understanding of what she wanted. Not easy. Its sometimes easier and more effective to forget drawing and just go strait to metal, and just see what happens...having no specific end result in mind. This is how i often work, although it can mean remaking a couple of times, as in this case.

Progress in the garden....

Organic veggie garden going strong. Practicing sustainability not only through my Jewellery, but as a lifestyle... as best as i can for now.

Get great pleasure and nourishment from this little garden.

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).

Yay to blogging :)

As i page through my journal, i see loads of thoughts, ideas and work that goes on that i dont ever bother to blog about. Its seems i have convinced myself into becoming the anti-blog. yes I find it hard to sit at a pc and type,(as do most of us)and would much prefer to be sitting out in the sun with my journal along with plenty pencils and colours. and Yes journalling is positive, great and helps me. But in my journal i do not write much.

After being so negative about blogging i have come to realize that i am a victim of it and make a huge issue over it instead of just sitting down as i am now and just writing what comes to mind. I know that blogging will be a great help when putting my research report together at the end of next yr. So i have made a concious choice to stop excusing myself from my blog due to my lack of pc skills and blaaa blaahh blaaahhh whatever etc.

I aim to do atleast one post a week. I will start with a couple more as i will try to go back in my mind and journal and do some "catching up" with my posts. This is not ideal, but its a step in the direction i want to be heading. Yay to blogging! :)

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 :)