Author: Jewel Envy

Congratulation to Nicole and Robert that they are getting marry soon! They spent two Sundays and made wedding bands for each others. Without any jewellery making experience, they did such fantastic job on carving and finishing.

I have spent the last couple months mulling over the idea of superstitions and how to represent them in jewellery for Zilberschmucks annual jewellery competition and exhibition. When I really started to think about them I realized just how integrated they are in our daily lives and although we may rationally know they are not true we often take precautionary steps just in case our small actions can effect our future.

I thought about the superstitions I subscribe to and if could protect myself what would be the one I wish my actions could actually affect. This lead me to think about the heart and how to protect it from failure of both the literal and figurative kind. From here it seemed natural to design a piece of armor to protect the heart. Stay tuned for an image of my interpretation of heart protection.

About 4 years ago, I was a student in my second year at George Brown College. I needed broken pieces of jewellery to fix in my repair class I was taking. My mother handed over a bag full of jewellery, mostly pearls to restring, some things that actually just couldn’t be fixed, and a 10ky gold ring with a broken shank at the bottom and a missing stone (an amethyst she tells me). It was much too big for her as a child when she got it. She told me she used to pinch the bottom of the ring to make it fit. At .5mm thick, it’s no surprise it cracked! In a timid attempt, I filed the broken edges flat and poorly soldered it back together. I was so unimpressed I just never gave it back to her.
During that epic room clean I did a couple months back, I actually found the bag of broken jewellery, ring and all! I thought to myself, wouldn’t this be a lovely birthday present to surprise mom with? I knew that I would have to cut it open and redo the soldering job so I figured I should make it an adult size at the same time. I also found a tiny little amethyst to bring it all back together. This time, I was still terrified of ruining it but I took my time and ended up pretty happy with the results.
Plus my mom was happy and totally surprised!

-L

The opening night to our Second Student Show was a huge success, with lots of great food,conversation, and of course the
beautiful jewellery.

While enjoying my winter vocation in Montreal, I spent an afternoon and
visited The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Of all the exhibition,
Decorative Art and Design and Big Bang were inspirational. Decorative
Art and Design presents how work of art revolutionized through seven
hundred years from past to present. I was impressed by the change in use
of material, the style and the sense of practicality. I see how we keep
challenging our creativity to make our life more interesting by adding
some edge on things. In Big Bang, En Masse was breathtaking to me. Once I
step in En Masse‘s room, I don’t know where to start from because every
spot on the wall is covered with drawings. They are all unique and
exciting. Eventhough they are drawn in black lines, two dimensional form
and colorless, images speak the story and create a connection with
audience. 

ChiaChien