Collection 1 - Goldsmiths' Precious Metal Grant
"Moving Scenes Pendants"
"The Goldsmiths’ Centre’s Precious Metal Grant is an annual competition which provides exactly £750 of precious metal bullion to a maximum of 12 silversmithing and 8 jewellery recipients. Its purpose is to provide 20 students the opportunity to design and make jewellery, silverware or associated piece(s) in precious metal which illustrates their skills as a designer and maker."
I spent a lot of time over Christmas working on my submission for the Goldsmiths' Precious Metal Grant.
I'd heard about it during my time at the Goldsmiths' Undergraduate Summer School and it seemed like the next logical step in my relationship with them.
Ever since last year's Fine Jewellery Techniques module, I've wanted to develop my kinetic jewellery ideas further.
The mechanism I developed for my boat automaton could be adapted for endless "scenes" so I decided to knuckle down and design a range of kinetic pendants, based on this.
This is the design proposal I submitted along with a detailed cutting list and personal statement:
I'd heard about it during my time at the Goldsmiths' Undergraduate Summer School and it seemed like the next logical step in my relationship with them.
Ever since last year's Fine Jewellery Techniques module, I've wanted to develop my kinetic jewellery ideas further.
The mechanism I developed for my boat automaton could be adapted for endless "scenes" so I decided to knuckle down and design a range of kinetic pendants, based on this.
This is the design proposal I submitted along with a detailed cutting list and personal statement:
"PLEASE PROVIDE A 250 WORD BIO OF YOUR WORK (your style, design aims, how this piece of work will help push your ideas) AND EXPLAIN HOW YOU SEE YOUR WORK EVOLVING THROUGH THIS DESIGN:
I became fascinated by the mechanisms of automata and moving toys whilst researching a kinetic jewellery project last year. As a former engineer, the challenges and opportunities these presented immediately captured my imagination.
I produced a prototype pendent for that project and these new designs include an updated version of that piece as well concepts for new scenes.
I have stuck with a simple wire crank mechanism as this produces a naturalistic bobbing/waving motion that compliments my main design themes of wind and water. As I found with my prototype, each crank will need a certain amount of experimentation to achieve a pleasing motion.
In the future I plan to investigate more complex mechanisms and am particularly interested in simple gearing and how it could be miniaturised and applied to fine kinetic jewellery.
My inclusions of both yellow and red gold into these 5 designs, will hopefully produce a more painterly quality to the scenes than I achieved in my (purely silver) prototype, and I shall experiment again with oxidisation of the silver components to achieve greater depth.
My prototype was very well received by friends, family and colleagues, and I hope to develop these designs into a full collection (I shall produce them in silver even if I am not awarded the Precious Metal Grant and investigate the feasibility of using cast components). I already have a couple of new ideas for scenes and would also like to play around with the interchangeability of the components, which would allow for a certain degree of customisation."
"CUTTING LIST
(Please provide us with an accurate costing of the materials required to produce the design. This should include precious metals of at least £750):
I became fascinated by the mechanisms of automata and moving toys whilst researching a kinetic jewellery project last year. As a former engineer, the challenges and opportunities these presented immediately captured my imagination.
I produced a prototype pendent for that project and these new designs include an updated version of that piece as well concepts for new scenes.
I have stuck with a simple wire crank mechanism as this produces a naturalistic bobbing/waving motion that compliments my main design themes of wind and water. As I found with my prototype, each crank will need a certain amount of experimentation to achieve a pleasing motion.
In the future I plan to investigate more complex mechanisms and am particularly interested in simple gearing and how it could be miniaturised and applied to fine kinetic jewellery.
My inclusions of both yellow and red gold into these 5 designs, will hopefully produce a more painterly quality to the scenes than I achieved in my (purely silver) prototype, and I shall experiment again with oxidisation of the silver components to achieve greater depth.
My prototype was very well received by friends, family and colleagues, and I hope to develop these designs into a full collection (I shall produce them in silver even if I am not awarded the Precious Metal Grant and investigate the feasibility of using cast components). I already have a couple of new ideas for scenes and would also like to play around with the interchangeability of the components, which would allow for a certain degree of customisation."
"CUTTING LIST
(Please provide us with an accurate costing of the materials required to produce the design. This should include precious metals of at least £750):
- Sterling silver casting grains – 27g
- 3 pieces 1mm argentium sheet – 117x28mm, 81x30mm, 58x26mm
- 1mm 18k recycled yellow gold sheet – 26x22mm
- 1mm 18k red gold sheet – 23x17mm
- 1mm round argentium wire – 820mm
- 1mm square 18k yellow gold wire – 110mm
- 1.5mm square 18k yellow gold wire – 130mm
|
And after a long wait, I received the news that my submission had been successful!
"Dear Heather, Congratulations! We are delighted to inform you that your design has been selected for a £750 Goldsmiths’ Precious Metal Grant. The judges were very impressed with your design development and asked me to pass on their interest in seeing your final product." Although my other two competition successes (GCDC & Make Your Mark) are more public, and may be more valuable, this one meant more to me. It was not part of the course and I spent a lot of my own time working on it. Plus I really think that these designs could be my way forward into a career specialising in kinetic jewellery. |
The application required an approximate retail cost. This is what I came up with. It's HORRIFYING.
