July is starting to wind down, and it’s been a busy one!
For those of you who didn’t know, I participated in the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition at Nathan Phillips Square on July 9-11. It was a great weekend, and despite setting up in a torrential downpour.
I had the help of my father again, who likes to drive in from Montreal (or rather, I volunteered his services for a weekend…. parents are handy that way). The show was a huge success despite many roadblocks that made it harder to work at the studio (G20 Summit….a downtown power outage).
I finished many new designs and showed over 60 pieces of jewellery. I was really honoured to receive the award for Best Jewellery in that category for the second year in a row – I didn’t think it possible! Now I am gearing up for our group exhibition “RED” in which I will make jewellery inspired by debt, visual language of sales and advertising……..I’m sitting here cutting out many many many “red tags” with the word “sale”…which will eventually turn into a necklace of giant proportions.

Next enameling class is scheduled to begin Wednesday, August 18th! This 8 week class will run Wednesdays from 6:30 to 9:30 pm and is offered at a beginner (no experience necessary) or intermediate level (for those who have taken fabrication and beginner enameling or equivalent elsewhere) Can’t wait!

Please visit my Metal Arts Guild page for more photos from the Outdoor Show and some of my most recent work!

Signing off for now!

– Emily

Hi, Jennifer the Intern here, checking in to share some thoughts on this past weekend…
 It is good to be open.  Open concept, open-ended, open for business, open to possibility.  The best part of “open” is the process, the opening, if you will.  There is a dual, hopeful anticipation of both the opener and the open-ee, as the mental or physical boundaries are pried away and “new” is revealed.  As artists, we participate on both sides, often simultaneously.  We stir our creative soup to see what will present itself to us, then prepare it to share with someone else who shares with us again.  In the best openings, there is thrill of the find, thrill of the risk, and lots of wine with good bread and cheese.
Saturday night was the opening of Gillian Batcher’s work at Robin Gray’s newly transplanted Organic Metal Gallery, 578 College Street.  The space is elegant and comfortable and… well… organic?  It’s obviously not the T2, mercury-looking, crazy, living metal biosphere one might hope for when thinking of “organic metal”, but the insurance would be through the roof on something like that, so it’s okay.  Wood has been beautifully introduced into the space, including the nice, large cases for featured work and sweet, natural touches added with great craftsmanship.
The work that was opened Saturday night added playful, fresh colour to the space and a great opportunity to show Gillian’s enthusiasm for enameling.  The party was fun and the best way to get the metal-heads off the bench, around jewellery, onto good conversations, and into a little booze.  Cynthia was a perfect goldsmith host 🙂  Afterwards, the Jewel Envy crew went out to dinner on College Street, which is never a bad thing, and ended the night happy and half-asleep.

Hi all, this is my turn to blog this week or last week 😛 Sorry of delaying if you follow our blog. First of all, I want to congrats Emily Gill who won the best jeweler in TOAE. Emily, you rock!

I have been working hard on my first mirror locket for Red. It took me a while figuring out the best way of depicting the theme which is Snow White. I use copper to build the shape. It is actually my first time of making things with copper, and it wasn’t easy because it’s so soft after heating. Therefore, I spend a lot of time on fixing my mistakes during construction! Finally, I encountered those technical difficulties and it is almost DONE! Woohoo….I can’t wait to see the finish product myself. However, I should calm down a little since I tend to ruin things when I get too excited or try to rush it. (pictures will be updated for showing process)

Here is a site I like to share with you. Maybe you guys have heard of it already.
www.ted.com
It is an inspirational site. It’s a huge community where people from various profession and talk about different things such as science, arts, culture and etc. I just found a topic that reminds me of what I am doing now. It is, Yves Behar on designing ojects that tell stories. Now I am going to listen and to find out what he is trying to tell us!
Also, I watched a documentary, Objectified. It talked about industrial design and what is considered as good design. Even though I am a jewellery designer, I personally learn a lot from their aspect and beauty of design.

Talk to you all soon!
ChiaChien

I started a jewelry group on  Facebook for  my jewelry design. I will share my work process, inspiration and new work and news. I hope to see you at:
www.facebook.com/pages/Efrat-Deutsch-Jewelry-Design/111142605597975?ref=ts
 Here is a little promo for my new enameling work
It has a shiny back and a colorful front.. SOON TO COME! 🙂

 Efrat 🙂

   After a morning of laundry and discovering my new cat’s hiding place I made my way over the Nathan Phillips Square to enjoy the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibit.  It was wondeful to see so many great artists gathered together to show new work and sell it directly to the public, I’m always excited to browse around all the booths.

I visited Emily Gill to give her a small break to buy ice cream and to congratulate her on winning the “Best of Jewellery” category.  Congratulations Emily, looks like all the hard work you have been doing has paid off for the second year in a row, woohoo! 

I stopped by Amanda DelaCruz’s booth to check out her new work.  I first met Amanda at the 2009 grad show at the Ontario College of Art and Design and since then she has taken an enameling course at Jewel Envy.  She has been busy ever since, got herself a kiln and has been creating lovely work combining enameled pieces with fabric and ribbon. It was wonderful to see such a breadth of new work from her, keep it up Amanda!

I passed by Joyce Jia-Yi Yang‘s booth and paused to look over miniture trowels and spades made with mokume handles.  Also an amazingly constructed umbrella fabricated out of metal – truly amazing!

Another jeweller that I took note of was Ko Park.  She has created amazing CAD created rings that you can assemble together with alternative acrylic parts, they are so much fun!

I ended off the day chatting with Kristofir Dean catching up with him since his visit to Toronto from B.C. is coming to an end and I left the show with one of his paintings, I’m such a lucky girl!

I had a good time browsing around, if you didn’t be sure to check out the artists links I attached and take a peak!  You can also check the online catalogue of artists from the show.

Ciao!
Alexis

Hi Again,

This week I have been working on a special piece for a charity. The event is being organized by 18Karat in and will take place in November. I was inspired a couple weeks ago but did not have time to start my piece so instead I did many many many sketches! Finally I had some time last week to start it. The piece is about strength and courage. It will be auctioned off with the proceeds going to support a battered womens help line. I have to say I am going to miss this piece but I hope it will bring in some money for a very worthy cause. Here are some pics of the work in progress!                                                                         

The left side is marriage of metal with nickle on top and sterling silver on the bottom. The night side if mokume gane with 20 layers of sterling silver and nickle.

 At this point I am deciding on the stones for inside the pendant as well as the back of the necklace.

Now I am sewing on the pearl edging. The necklace is far from complete but that is my progress so far. Stay tuned for more details!

Gillian

Goldsmithing tends to be a solitary activity. Although many people work in group studio environments, the majority of jewellers work in small areas and are in many ways isolated from their peers. The reasons for working alone can vary greatly but the job itself requires so much concentration than even working with others around you does not always pull you out from your own microcosmic world.

So what can you do about this self imposed bubble? One way is to find ways to get involved in the jewellery community. In Toronto, the jewellery community is lucky to have both the Ontario Crafts Council, and the Metal Arts Guild of Canada’s head offices located in the heart of downtown.

Their proximity alone means there must be other solitary workers who may not know how to reach out. Thankfully the internet is a fast and easy resource to find out about what is happening in the city all around you.

Recently I decided it was time to get more involved with the metal community. I have spent the last ten years working as a full time goldsmith and I feel like I should be giving back as I know others have helped me over the years. My first decision was to organize the Jewel Envy group exhibition titled “Red”; with the help of the other jewellers here. With that planning underway I also decided to start vounteering more actively for the Metal Arts Guild of Canada (MAG).

MAG is an organization run on the sheer willpower of artists and business people alike. It has the potential to strengthen the Canadian metal workers presence and bring our artists into a national arena….but only if we get more help from other stranded jewellers at large.

Tonight I am off to the MAG party to bring Toronto jewellers and metal workers a little closer together. We are hoping to inspire others to join in and help us sustain an organization who’s sole purpose is to help us succeed. The party is open to everyone with an interest in metal. We want you to come out and learn how you can help make MAG work for you!

Party details:
MAG head office
88 Elm Groove Ave
Toronto, ON
7:30-10pm

Come join us and meet your co-workers, friends, and metal enthusiasts!

Gillian

Materials: Sterling silver with 18k gold plating, smooth gold fill spheres, blue Chinese jade, and agate.

A selection of “small town, BIG city” is available at The Coal Miner’s Daughter, a beautiful boutique in Mirvish village. 

Looking forward to sharing more on my progress with you!

Kathryn Rebecca
Life is short – do what you love!

https://www.kathrynrebecca.com/

Lately I’ve been thinking that there’s a fair bit of truth to the old proverb “if you live by the sword, you die by the sword.” You see, mokume gane is killing me. I might well be talking about a murderous anime character, but I’m actually referring to an ancient (and fiendishly difficult) technique developed by Japanese sword makers to impart dazzling wood grain patterns to the surfaces of their blades. Mildly insane goldsmiths – that would be me – have adopted this technique to create stunning works of jewellery. All it takes is endless hours of pounding and soldering layers of metal into billets which are then cut, twisted, filed, or otherwise tortured into exposing the beautiful patterns within.

Mokume gane is hard to learn: a few extra seconds of heat and you end up with a pile of lousy and expensive junk. It’s also taking a toll on my body, as the endless pounding of silver, copper, gold, or platinum sheets leaves my hands throbbing and my ears ringing.

Mokume gane is hard to master. But I’m harder.

Young Kyoung Ko