Sneak peek at some of the brilliant embroidery face masks created by UK, wide mental health nurses, on zoom sessions this year. Underneath The Mask is a public engagement project co-facilitated and devised by myself and Dr Jessica McLaren from Edinburgh Napier University. The three workshops we ran were part of Dr McLaren’s research into emotional labour undertaken by mental health nurses. These are 9 out of 18 which are soon going to be on display at the Edinburgh Science Festival and within NHS Lothian hospitals this summer.
So it’s almost been a year since I last blogged….and what a year it has been! Halfway through the 1st lockdown last summer, my colleague and fellow jeweller Lisa Arnott and I applied to Creative Scotland to secure funding for a socially engaged jewellery project and were successful in securing it. We are shortly going to be launching the Flourish Jewellery project working with women from north Edinburgh and south Edinburgh who have experienced social, economic or mental health challenges are a result of the covid pandemic. Our project is in partnership with North Edinburgh Arts and Womenzone and will be delivered on weekly basis in the form of jewellery making workshops happening at Silverhub Studios in Edinburgh. We cannot wait to get started and very much hope that we can run face to face workshops with the women on a weekly basis until the finish of the project in December. We have a dedicated project website that will be launching soon, so watch this space!
I’ve always retreated into making and keeping my hands busy in times of uncertainty. Over these four weeks of lockdown, I’ve been teaching myself the art of paper flowers. Having trained as a florist and worked in the trade for just under ten years, I was devasted when I developed a serve allergic reaction to these plants. However, to my delight, I have discovered that crepe paper captures some of the delicacy and form of flowers, especially when you can apply patterns and markings through dying it and painting with inks. Every day I have been creating at least one and it’s almost become a little bit a meditative process. Our vase in the hallways is growing day by day and who knows perhaps by the end of lockdown I will have a garden full of them! Enjoy!
Munich Jewellery Week 2020A few weeks ago before the world started to change beyond recognition, I was lucky to attend Munich Jewellery Week http://www.munichjewelleryweek.com with my colleague Lisa Arnott and the group of students we teach on http://www.silverhubstudios.com One Year Course. This yearly event hosts a range of exhibitions by international makers. The work is exhibited citywide in all kinds of spaces ranging from public toilets to the Pinakothek der Moderne. Despite an understandably large number of exhibitors having to pull out of the festival, we still managed to see a fabulous variety of art jewellery and it was evident that a lot of talent was still in town. Seeing all the wonderful pieces and meeting all sorts of makers from around the world was incredibly inspiring. Here are some pieces that resonated with me from the exhibition Works and Days at Anite Konigsplatz. Writing this in the current isolation climate, I look forward to next year’s festival and all the creative energies, makers and brilliance it will offer.
On the 19th of February a fantastic symposium will be taking place in St Andrews to complement the international touring exhibition Heat Exchange || . The day will focus on enamel as a precious metal technique. The artist and curator Elizabeth Turrell will being giving a talk on the exhibition. Dr Elizabth Goring will give another talk on the history of enamel. I will then be giving a short presentation along side 5 other Scottish-based practitioners Karolina Baines, Stephan Bottomley, Susan Cross, Ann Little and Heather McDermott.