The years line up!

I am currently working on creating a special wedding necklace for my sister for her wedding. And besides that I have a lot of exciting exhibitions lined up for the year including Schmuck in Munich, The British Craft Trade Fair in Harrogate and the RBSA Gallery in Birmingham. You will soon be seeing some of my new work so hold your breath!
:)

Jewellery Quarter

It has been a few months since I have been wandering around the jewellery quarter in Birmingham trying to source tools and material supplies. I must say every time I go to buy something, I end up buying more things than I had initially planned. I am not really a shopoholic, but I just like the idea of having more tools and discoverign new tchniques. Anyways, I have been thinking about this for a while and today I have decided to finally act upon t. I am planning to use my blog as a way to communicate to other jewellers about where you can get what and how the customer service in each place is.

Let me start by mentionaing by my favourite tool store, Walsh's http://www.hswalsh.com/default.aspx. I think they are the nicest and most helpful tools store in the jewellery quarter. Each time I have gone to the store, I have been welcomed with a warm greeting. The people behind the counter are always able to guide you on what the best tool would be to suit your requirement. It's just always a pleasure to work with them.

I am going to try and update this blog more frequently with my experience with supplier's and what can be found where!

Slowly but Surely

Its been a while, but hey lots has been going on so I've had my hands full. Flux, Frost and Structure and Function are the three places I am currently exhibiting at. So I guess you can well imagine how stressed I have been. It's been a lot of fun too. After completing my Masters, Design Space has been my safe haven. Have been working here with 18 other designer makers and have been enjoying every second of it. We have all finally managed to put up an exhibition thanks to Clare Pardoe's relentless effort. The exhibition is currently on at the St Paul's Gallery and will shorly move to the Artfull expressions which is also in the Jewellery Quarter.

I was on air on BBC a few days back which was fun... Have been on TV before but this was my first experience at a radio recording studio. I really enjoyed it especially because the RJ Satnam Rana made me feel so comfortable. I almost felt like I was having a chat with her.

There was a tiny article in the Birmingham Mail today about my work and I surprised at how wrong they got everything... I did'nt come to the UK because of the School of Jewellery, I came here because of my dearest hubby ... anyways... I have learnt not to get wound up about what journalists write because the last time they made me the chief of design at Tanishq, thankfully Elizabeth was'nt offended :)

Some of my designs have also been selected by Swarovski and I am really excited to see the publication.

Anyways back to my work. I have developed a small rage of pieces using my technique to create pieces which are of a smaller scale... I think I have managed to keep the aesthetics intact which I am pleased about. The other thing I have tried to work towards is to use off cuts from acrylic vendors to create a range of jewellery. I like the idea of recycling plastic and the cufflinks I have designed and made are a result of this.

My website is also coming along quite well. Michael is to be thanked for doing such a wonderful job with it and keeping it updated. I still want a few changes to be made which should hopefully come about soon.

I am looking forwards to the new year which I start off with some skiing in the US which is then followed by a few interesting projects which I am currently trying to line up.

I think I am slowly finding a niche for myself in the UK finally . Its slow but thats what keeps me going. :)

24th June

David Clarke's Tutorial, that was probably todays highlight. He gave me some valuable feedback... how many pieces are you making... exact nos. is what he wanted... no about... arounds were acceptable... luckily the no. popped out of my head... He told me to think about the scale of my pieces. David was confident that I would create good designs and good results using computers and lasers however he wanted me to work hard on the finish of my pieces and perfect them. I really need to strive for perfection now for the final show and make sure that I make pieces that look spectacular. I am going to start with this from tomorrow... I hope I am able to achieve this. He also asked me to think about the production of my pieces. To think i I would be able to make the pieces more affordable if I increased the volume produced. I have thought about that however I would like to take that on at a later stage when I am confident that I will be able to cope with volumes. Right now I want to concentrate on the MA show but it is certainly my plan for the future!
I worked on some of my designs and managed to convert a few of them into digital images. Lots of work to do. I hope I am able to complete it all!!

23rd June

Today has been a useful day in terms of designing. I continued from where I had left yesterday. Creating rings that had interesting form and were created mearly by bending or folding one single piece. I had started creating explorations in paper as it helped me ideate in a clearer fashion. Here are some of the paper samples I have been exploring.


I then decided to create one piece in acrylic to make sure that I could execute what I had in mind. Although it took me half a day to make this ring, I am quite happy with the end result. I still need to work on a few details but at least now I know that my concept works. I have used an opaque orange acrylic sheet for this ring. However for my future pieces I would like to use hand dyed coloured acrylic and laser ingrave it to add to the detail of the piece.

Marketing advice from Mathias

Yesterday was a really interesting day for me. Matthias who is a friend of Michael's and is a sales and marketing manager for Bentley cars came over to Birmingham to meet us. He generally comes from Berlin to UK quite reguary and it was nice that we could meet up last evening. We dragged him with us to the BCU Fashion show at the Millenium point which he clearly really enjoyed. At the end of the show he gave some really good advice on how I shoud go about with marketing my pieces. I was luckily wearing one of my brooches which I showed him during our conversation. He really liked it and said that his wife Patricia would love to wear something like that. He kept asking me how much the piece cost and if I had another one. Unfortunatey as these are my work in progress pieces I did not have another one. So I took the piece I was wearing and handed it over to him. He said that Pat had oads of friends who would be interested in buying things like them which were fashionable and unique. He said he would show the piece to Pat and see what response she has to it and once she wears them see the response her friends have to it. This got me very excited as I would ove to know what people think about my pieces and how peope in Germany would react to it. Althought the fittings were not made to perfection it is still wearable. I cant wait til he calls me this weekend to tell me about Patricia's response. Of course as I promised Mathias, once I finish my course I'll have a finished piece ready for Patricia to own!! It will be some good piece of information on the market I can collect and is a starting point for my future business.