The Chronicle of the Rectangles

My jewelry #DoPositive has won the Award of Excellence from Silver Accessories Contest in Japan.

I’m deeply grateful for the winning and for completing this piece :) Technically it’s one of the most elaborate jewelry I’ve ever made, and design-wise I’m truly pleased with my take on the contest theme: ‘Power’.

I traveled a lot this summer including for a jewelry teaching trip to Italy, and when I was back home, I picked up the daily routine rather slower than usual. Just now I finally could complete the writing of this post.

So, here’s how my piece looks like :) The main materials are silver, copper, and a touch of 24K gold. It’s a pretty large piece as a ‘complete piece’, but as I always want it with my jewelry, it wears comfortably despite the size.

I said ‘complete piece’, because it can transform to separate jewelry pieces by using an additional silver chain and a pair of earring loops:

As always, I started to develop the initial idea into a sketch. Right away, it spoke to me like an invitation to a super cool adventure. However, I wasn’t immediately sure of attending since many questions arose. Due to the contest time frame, the biggest concern was: Would I be able to finish it?

 

An invitation to a super cool adventure, which I wasn’t immediately sure of attending :D

I love transformable jewelry like my Coral & Winter Garden, but I knew this was something at another level, so I’d have to allow extra time to figure some things out, especially the construction. Knowing that there’s no better moment to realize this idea but when there’s a contest timeline, I decided to take a plunge. So I shut the door and just did this for few weeks :D

After continuing the process with detailed sketching of all elements, I made the exact measurement. The whole shaping process was completely by hand, and as precision is key in a geometric piece like this, I scanned my drawing and traced it onto a graphic program for accurate calculation of for example material shrinkage factors and measurement between the elements.

Going through lots of sketches before arriving at ‘the one’.

Then, I continued working with silver clay which I rolled, cut, carved, assembled… all by hand using tools such as knives, spatula, brushes etc. To get the jewelry as I envisioned it, I used different techniques including the New Mokume Gane, based on ancient Japanese metal technique Mokume Gane, and Silver Quilling, which I learned last year in Japan. I used Art Clay Silver and Copper metal clay as main materials.

The crafting process was intensive, especially because New Mokume Gane technique requires special firing in the jewelry kiln, and along the way, there were ups and downs as many things took other turns than planned ;) The biggest challenge was the construction to make the pieces convertible into several other pieces.

In the end, all worked perfectly, and I learned a lot. The piece arrived in Japan on time, I went on a trip and came back to hear the happy announcement. After that, I asked my contacts online and offline whether they knew what the piece was about. Until now no one seemed to know the exact idea behind it :)

 

With this piece, I wanted to capture our current world.

Not fantasy, but reality. Not the past, not the future.

 

The contest’s theme was ‘Power’, and I was thinking one of the most powerful things in our modern life: the internet, which has revolutionized our lives and keeps advancing through different applications.

A part of it, the social media, has become an inseparable part of most people’s life. Most of us must have some kind of social media account. Even nonusers still get info from it, talk about it, perhaps being intrigued by it too. A single post on a newsfeed not only can influence, it could even affect someone’s day or change someone’s life.

I constantly bump into all kind of news related to the social media, sometimes stories which are unimaginable. These often make me wonder, maybe because personally, I tend to be a laid back social media user. My average of posting on my personal Facebook account is probably 1.28 times in a month (yep, thirty days) :D I like to keep the connection and follow my contacts, but I check social media only when I’m in front of the computers and nowhere else. If you’re with me for a cup of tea, you can be sure you’ll be my one and only focus!

 

Those rectangles in our lives…

These days, much of our time is spent to look at those little rectangles. I’m talking about the pictures, thumbnails and other graphics. A click could lead to anything, from the expected to the unexpected. A picture is not anymore just a picture, it is an instant connection.

More than just rectangles, they are connections, feelings, thoughts, emotions….

Those rectangles could stir up all sort of feelings, thoughts, emotions. Each has a significant meaning, at least for whoever put that up. On those rectangles are the reflections of many things, but perhaps could be boiled down to both: reality or anything outside of that. With so much information going around, it’s not a wonder that it’s so easy to get distracted. We see more of everything, the worlds of others.

My piece is about staying positive, being positive, doing positive and spreading positivity, both offline and online, the two worlds we live in now.

The focal point of my piece has hearts shapes which form a plus-sign, to represent positivity. The plus-sign and heart shapes also represent a clover, as I believe what goes around comes around :)

Hearts, a plus (positive) sign & a clover

The idea of having the piece that transforms into different pieces, or the other way around, smaller pieces that could become something grand, echoes the power of instant connection as we have it now. In reality, the cooperation of positive individuals could lead to something really awesome!

 

That’s the story of my piece, hence the hashtag on the title :)

This was also the first time I’ve ever used hashtag online btw :D

 Stay positive, be positive, do positive and spread the good vibes, both offline and online, the two worlds we live in now

My piece, along with around 320 entries for the contest, will be displayed between 4-8.10.2017 at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. If you happen to be nearby that time, I strongly recommend visiting. I’ve been there; it’s a wonderful exhibition especially if you’re a fan of jewelry.

 

Let’s connect? :D

Ha! It’s kind of funny to say :) Feel free to sign up for my newsletter; I usually send it once in a month or two months. I’ve also recently signed up for Instagram as I thought it would be a suitable platform to showcase my work (jewelry, paintings, writings and more), but I haven’t posted anything and no promise of anything at the moment :D It will be on instagram.com/svvajewels if you’d like to check it out in the future. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have comment or question below.

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