For Your Ears Only - Easter 2011

Dore and I were very happy to have pleasant weather and a great turn out to our exhibition of earrings at oneofftwo. It was a real pleasure to show other Artists beautiful jewellery for the first time. All were appreciated by our visitors. It was a great day made truly special with the fantastic jazz guitar played by Trevor Jones - a recent arrival to East Gippsland from Melbourne, who was accompanied on piano by our son, Linus.

Chaos and Order

This is the work and artist statement for my current exhibition showing at Anita Traverso Gallery in Richmond at 7 Albert St. The real thing is even better so go and have a look!.You have until Christmas

When people say it’s a crazy world, they’re not kidding. Think about it: one minute you’ve nailed the order of things, and you see the sophisticated symmetry, the tidy arrangements that reassure you of structure, that all is well. The next moment, a curve ball hurtles into your vision and chaos reigns. Nature is the ultimate regulator and simultaneously the anarchist throwing everything into turmoil, the magician of pandemonium. It’s impossible to separate the two, even though I initially tried as I approached this theme. I thought I would create separate pieces, some representing the human effort that inevitably falls into a state of chaos and others that signify nature’s ability to effortlessly create ordered perfection. It didn’t take me long to realise that my approach was flawed; it’s impossible to separate the two because chaos and order are symbiotic. I stumbled upon this discovery pretty quickly. Each piece in this collection is a miniature world that translates the concepts of chaos and order into metal, enamel and gemstones. I hope you enjoy the journey.

Metung Video

For those of you that have no idea what a beautiful place Metung is, please jump on the link and have a look at this video that was made to promote the village and surrounds.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=118829871490035

Tea Wares, Jam Factory group exhibition

Here's a slide show of the work I made recently for "Tea Wares", currently showing at the Jam Factory craft centre in Adelaide. It is a group of 13 silver teaspoons that I had a lot of fun making and after a few name changes I finally settled on:

A dozen different silver teaspoon. (sic) - 1. Nordic, 2.Iconic, 3. Ironic, 4. Sardonic, 5. Cyclonic, 6.Pacific, 7. Electric, 8. Ascetic, 9. Eclectic, 10. Teutonic, 11. Sub-sonic, 12. Comic

Well, I had to come up with something to explain the almost schizophrenic variety of the spoons.

Enameling workshops

It was always our intention when we were designing our studio that we would be able to conduct small workshops and classes in the various aspects of jewellery making and now that we at last have a functioning toilet, we are both very excited to now be able to do just that.

We are going to kick off with two cloisonne enamel workshops to be held in July, we couldn't decide whether to hold them during or after the school holidays so we have decided to do both.

Dore was also very keen that the workshops are held for 4 hours each day so that the participants do not lose their powers of concentration and up the chances of enameling accidents. The pleasant benefit of this is that any visiting participants will have nigh on half a day to do any of the many lovely things in the area. These include, bush and beach walking, swimming (brrrr), mountain bike or road riding, sailing, eating and wineries, even surfing and skiing! Any locals can go home and surf the couch.

We'll be able to conduct the workshops for 6 people in each and as the workshops will be an introduction to enameling participants won't need to have had any previous experience with enamel. Although as with any art practice a little patience goes a long way!

Workshop 1 Mon 5th - Fri 9th July
Workshop 2 Mon 12th - Fri 16th July

Workshops will run from 9am to 1pm each day and will cover the following

Introduction to enameling, metal preparation using requisite gold smithing techniques, design and use of colour, cloisonne enamel preparation and finishing, kiln use and safety.

Cost will be $440 (50% deposit payable 4 weeks in advance) and will cover tuition, all materials ie fine silver and enamels for one pendant. Those participants who are fast workers can produce more than one piece at extra cost of materials.
Morning tea/coffee/bickies are also included.

For further information please contact us on 5156 3270 or by email at our address top right

For accommodation in the area check out the links on the right

No longer a channel setting virgin!

Recently a client came to oneofftwo with a handful of grandmothers old rings wanting them made into a couple of new rings set with all of the stones, well I managed to use twenty of them. It was her suggestion to channel set the stones, I didn't think of doing the ring that way simply because I was a channel setting virgin. I'm really pleased we went down that road and she was very happy with the result too.

Cool Jewels Hot Jazz

Easter Sunday afternoon went off with a bang at oneofftwo with a lot of people enjoying our new work to the hot sounds of Duo 2 Go filling our studio. So mark your calenders as this will become an annual event, even bigger and better next year.

Opening Seldom Seen in Buchan

Here we are at last, finally got hold of some photos from the Seldom Seen project opening that we were involved with (as mentors) at Buchan up in the hills near Snowy River National Park. It was a glorious evening with quite a few appreciative locals in attendance as well as some blow-ins that made the trip - we even had a photo journalist from Australian Geographic with us as he was actually doing a story on the real Seldom Seen!
We both had a very enjoyable time with this multifaceted project, it was a lot of hard work but everything happened smoothly (well, as can be expected) and big thanks to all those who were involved and made such an effort to make this project the success that it was. We especially like to thank Evelyn Schmidt for the huge amount of organising and motivating that she did (not to mention her speech on opening night), Michael Woodburn for his tireless efforts with the painted Mega-fauna and to everyone else who was involved we thank-you for your time and enthusiasm!

Spare Bench

Over the years we have had quite a few work experience students in our studio for a week or more and it always has been fun. Within this time frame we have been able to show them some basic gold smithing skills and they each left the studio with their own piece of jewellery. As we have a spare bench we would like to offer it to anyone who would like to have a go at gold smithing. Maybe you would like to make a simple silver ring? Please contact us for more information.

Seldom Seen Rare Gems Exhibition

As part of the Melbourne Cup Weekend Seldom Seen Arts Trail, we had a lovely collection of rare gems and a small selection of new work.
The trail was a huge success, the weather couldn't have been better, lots of nice people around and many happy faces. We are all hoping it will happen again next year! We had a great experience at Buchan. Everything went really smooth. Thanks Ev! (We'll put some pics up soon)

Here's my good old tea-pot

A little while back some people from up the coast called in on their way to Kangaroo Island and they liked the look of the silver tea-pot that I'd made a few years ago and they wanted their neighbor to be able to see it. Here it is then. It started life at a master class held in Canberra by a Korean silversmith. It was a strange experience for me because she didn't speak English but she did speak German and she didn't like my tea-pot at all. We had some rather strong arguments about tea-pot design and function via translation thanks to my German friend Jens. She did have some natty ideas about making hollow forms though so I can forgive her laughing at my pot.

Anyway, the ceramic handle is off an old English electric kettle, the glass lid I carved from the base of one of those tall genie bottles from the 60's and the foot is a beautiful black pebble collected off one of East Gippsland's beaches. It's bit of a mish-mash of influences but with it's own unique character, just like Australia.

I've include a few more photos of my silversmithing.

Some remakes we've done lately

We've had a run of clients wanting their rings remade, here's a little slide show.

German goldsmith Svenja John visits oneofftwo.

Here's a slide show of Dore's co alumnae of Hanau's staatliche Zeichenakadamie from way back in the early eighties who between evenings sampling some wonderful regional wines got stuck into it and produced this beautiful hanging sculpture that she named after Nowa Nowa.

Svenja enjoyed her time here in Nungurner so much that she is planning to return in 2011 to drink more wine, eat more food and make us our very own pink hanging sculpture inspired by some of our stunning native grevillias and hakea's that are surrounding our studio.

Seldom seen

Marcus and Dore are having a great time on some Sundays going up to beautiful Buchan spending time with the good folks involved in the seldom seen project.
So far things are progressing at a steady rate of knots, but we are hanging on tight for the acceleration that is to come very soon! As we are zooming along watch out for strange mega-fauna, wonderful women and the occasional poppy.
See links for extra info

Here comes the thunder

flash - grgrgrgrgrumblegrumble grgrgrgrgrgr - kaboom!
pitapatter pitapatter - splash -
phew - it's hot up here!!
This is the inspiration for the thundercloud pieces - as I imagine it.
I look forward to experiencing it for real one day!