Blair and Sheridan, Glasgow

Yesterday I paid a visit to Douglas Blair's and Roddy Sheridan's newly opened jewellery shop in Glasgow's West End. Those of you who follow LOD's blog  may remember that Douglas came over to Sweden to do a workshop with us in 2010, which was a great success.

Time does fly and now he has started his own shop with Roddy Sheridan in the hip end of Glasgow's West End.  Douglas and Roddy have combined their talents in design, craftmanship and diamonds to launch a cutting edge design business with bespoke designs and unique creations. Basically lots of jewellery that one would love to have.

There are no interior shots as I think that you should go and experience that in person. Check out some of their designs at http://www.blairandsheridan.co.uk/. Watch this space!

Just golden

Klara posted pictures of these armbands on LOD's homepage as June is officially my last month as a member of LOD Metallformgivning. http://www.lod.nu/Nyheter.htm. It was a truly unique six years being there designing, creating and working alongside my talented collegues. I will miss our technical discussions, our creative debates and generally just working there in the workshops together. I will take a lot of wonderful memories with me.

These armbands are handsawn in silver before being goldplated with a matt finish.

Forest Of Light

This is a project that I have been working on with Viktor. At the moment we have one prototype and the current plan is to construct the forest this summer. Well a little forest at least and lighter in colour.

The concept is this. Wall mounted candleholders that can be extended and retracted to suit the mood of the evening. Each unit is fully flexible and is in essence a 'branch' holding a candle. The arms can be rotated from a primary axis to be positioned exactly as one wishes. The unit can be packed down to minimise space and be discreet when not in use.

I wanted to create an ' interior forest' contructed from the arms of the candleholders and the cast shadows that they create. A flexible forest, adaptable, fully retractable and graphically sculptural. This was a fictive poster that I created to illustrate the concept, so none of the 'links' work in real life.

Actual photographs will follow once I've found the location to base the photoshoot on, and once we have built the forest.

Group Spring Exhibition at Ztrand, Halmstad

Just now I'm taking part in a group exhibition with five other jewllery artists at Galley Ztrand in Halmstad. It's been a really rewarding experience to work alongside artists with a different background, and the resulting exhibition is quite beautiful. Clean, crisp, and full of intircate little metal sculptural objects.

I've had the pleasure to exhibit alongside: Paula Hagerskans, Therese Stalwin, Gertrud Heinerud (Happy Jewellery Of Sweden), Helle Rasmussen-Theliander and Åsa Halldin. You can check out some of their designs in my links section.

Two Linear Necklaces

It snowed at the weekend, and suddenly everything was white. All the patterns created by the brances are now fully visible against the white canvas. It made me think of these necklaces. One in oxidised silver and one in white.

Flower clusters

Flower cluster earrings in silver. Variations with knotted silver chain and simple studs. Light and matt white.

And further...

At the end of play today, there were two. But I forgot to take the camera to the workshop.

The journey continues

The journey continues with some abstract shapes, before everything comes together.

Back to normal?

Tomorrow is officially the first day back to work after the festive season, even if quite a few people have been working through the break. It's practical simple jewellery that is the key for everyday use. Tiny studs that can be dressed up or down to suit the occasion, and a simple yet unique handsawn necklace that works with many different outfits. Simplicity in silver.

Dark nights crave unique candle holders

Something I love with the dark nights is candlelight and the shadows and patterns that candles create. This is the smallest in a small series of bronze and silver candle holders with small stylised butterflies.

The cast light from the flame highlights the white wings and creates shadows in a subtle gentle way. Ideally this candleholder should be placed in a dark corner where the minimalistic light from the candle gets to realise its full potential.

Photograph: Christian Habetzeder

These....

These sketches are for small sculptural window decorations in silver. This year I would like to talk about designs that haven't been realised as yet and show what happens with their development, as the project progresses.

With this design I'd originally intended to do a 'sketch' that was semi-realistic. As I started drawing it transpired that actually the emotion and meaning behind the piece were dictating the style. The resulting design is spindly and ghost-like with the form dissapearing into the air at the extremities. A fire bird, with vitality in the centre, that has been lost to the wind.

A fresh start with a unique ring

January is the time for planning and bringing fresh ideas to the table. I bought a new diary and calendar for 2012 today and took my time picking the ones that felt just right. There are a lot of projects in the pipeline for 2012 but in order to start this year's blog in a pretty way with inspirational photographs, I thought I'd share the images of a ring that I made last year.

This is a one off ring that has been designed to work in conjunction with an existing ring. There won't ever be another one quite like it. Like the other rings in the Kvist series, the diamonds spread out along the lines of the pattern like water, giving a bright glimmer to just parts of the design. The ring itself was left matt, allowing the true colour of the white gold to compliment the natural colour and shine of the coffee diamonds.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. Hope it's a good one!

At LOD

I took the chance between customers to take these photographs of LOD's Christmas Exhibition, complete with our own traditional 'Julbock'. That's the little goat made of Christmas tree branches, braving the winter chill outside. There's a lot of beautiful, unique jewellery and candle holders this year. 

Stockholm anyone?

I'm heading to Stockholm later on today, and I'm looking forward to working at LOD for the remainder of the week. It'll be lovely to get some of that Christmas spirit at the gallery and feel the excitement in the city.

This sign always makes me smile. It makes it look like Stockholm's just around the corner and not hundreds of kilometers away.

A White Christmas?

Ok ok, I took a few photos of the birds with 'diamonds' too, what can I say, they just looked the part amongst the branches. I think that the white versions are becoming a secret favourite. One extra white bird is coming with me to Stockholm on Wednesday and it's the last one!

Robots in the sky with diamonds

This was a series of photographs that I wanted to take last year, but just didn't get the chance in the run up to Christmas. 2010's photos would have had red and powder blue clouds, but 2011 brought white ones instead.

When I was designing these robots in Göteborg 2010, we had decided on a mechanical theme for LOD's Christmas exhibition. Robots were the first thing to pop into my head. I liked the concept of these little mechanical characters hanging in the air, with sparkling lights glittering and illuminating them like diamonds - and so the concept was born. Robots in the sky with diamonds. Best viewed with a cloud or two hanging in the background, for as we know, cloudy skies are a common sight on the West Coast.

Setting the scene

Setting the scene with handsawn silver napkin rings at the table. My aim is to extend this design into stainless steel so that these can be produced in a small scale series.

Another idea is to combine seven stainless steel napkin rings with one silver ring as a 'set', so that for special occasions, the person that is being celebrated gets to have the silver ring at their place.

Kvist armbands

 

Two variants from this collection. A mini version and a medium width. I've been making a catalogue for LOD this week and whilst working with a lot of different images, I realised that I haven't written about these silver armbands.  

The original drawings were based on intertwining twigs and the graphics that they created. After many re-workings, the feeling of interlocking branches has become an abstract design. There's just a hint of where the design originates from, especially when the drawings are translated into silver. I've actually never done an oxidised version of this design, but perhaps black intertwining lines would resemble the original hedges in the fog that was the beginning to this whole collection?

Snow Flowers

I love the whiteness of silver with little accents of shine and colour.