Happy new year to everyone!!
It is always good to spend time with friends and family during holiday, especially if you were too busy working on something else or you’ve been apart from them. This winter, my mom visited me from Korea to stay with me and ordered very special rosary rings with ten roses all around the wavy ring, and one for my dad. It took me many hours to hand-carve ten roses, but came out beautifully and she loved it 🙂

Rose Rosary Ring, Sterling silver, Rhodium plated

Ciao!
 Yesterday evening was my last night teaching and today is my last day working in the studio until the new year so I thought I should touch base through the blog and update with a couple pictures of student work. 

  I just finished teaching the 8 week Resin class, the students ran a little wild and helping them along with their projects was exciting.  It was a prerequisite for the class that you had experience in fabrication and/or casting so that the students could work on creating pieces that would also use resin in the piece.   Check these out:

Padrin Kwok’s rings

Flora Lam’s necklace

Both of these pieces were created by making molds and pouring resin into them, they both seemed excited about all the possibilities that resin allows and I hope that they both continue to make pieces with their molds. It was a joy teaching this class because I have it set in my mind the ways in which I like to use it in my work.  However, when you have a student with new ideas and no experience with the materials their creative output is as equally enthralling for me as it is for them. 

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season and I will continue writing in the new year!
Alexis   

Hello everyone,

this is a very exciting week!

Holiday Party!

This year I am happy to be participating in the 23rd Contemporary Canadian Jewellery Exhibition again at Lafreniere and Pai Gallery in Ottawa. The gallery has been very supportive of my somewhat unconventional style of jewellery since I finished my program at NSCAD, and I am always excited to send them new work.
My friend Kate also helped me shoot some new photos, which are lovely! I am happy to have a photographer friend to help out. Here are the great results! Enjoy!

So in this afternoon, I started to make my own
sterling silver ingot wire. It’s a good practice and we don’t waste any metal, especially its cost has been growing higher and higher. Here are some essential equipment we need: ingot mold, oil, crucible, a pair of welding glasses and metal! Once you have all of  these, you are all set! Now, we are ready to cast. After the rod is cast, we can either roll it down through rolling mill or hammering. When it’s rolled, it will become like a square. What are we going to do? we want round not square!! It’s alright, don’t panic.
 We use draw plate to pull the wire, then it will become round eventually. We need to repeat the process for a few times in order to get our final result.

 

This is a recent custom order piece from a lovely girlfriend, Tina Lin. She has always been creating a piece of meaningful jewellery for her best sister, friend and herself. Finally, we have it worked out. I hope you will like it 🙂

  

 ChiaChien Tsai

This is my first week as a Jewel Envy jeweller–and my first blog! It has also been my first time entering a juried show. Bond which runs at Zilberschmuck from Nov. 29 to Dec. 24 had many of us in the studio exploring our own interpretation of what “bond” means to us. The results are as remarkable and varied as the artists. The pieces will be judged on Tues. Nov. 9–good luck to everyone! My own piece explores the bonds that make up the three most common molecules in the human body–water, lipids, and proteins–and the bond between this (what we are) and who we are. While I have been the lucky recipient of so much encouragement and wisdom from the other jewellers, this is the first time I have experienced it in the high energy, stressful situation of getting ready for a show. I cannot thank everyone enough–every gasp or groan seem to send someone running to help! Being in such a cooperative space is incalculably enriching and invaluable. Thank you so much.
Lianne