News

Today my grandmother is 95 - happy birthday Oma!!!! Thought I'd start with that rather impressive birthday news!

Yesterday I made a visit to the lovely New Ashgate gallery in Farnham to drop off a couple of pieces of jewellery for my display there. If you haven't already seen it, their website has been spruced up and looks rather spiffy these days: http://www.newashgate.org.uk/shop_artists/7702/c/101/machi-waard/jewellery
Of course I also have work at Jam in Eton, whose new website is also pretty spiffy and you should have a look at the wide range of lovely jewellery (and more) on show: www.jam-eton.co.uk 

The big news for me is that I've joined Studio E174. The studio is a proper jewellery and silversmithing studio in the sense that it's filled with tools and benches and the buzz of people making exciting things. It's in a lovely old industrial building with lots of other studios in it, ranging from PMC upstairs to model cars and railways and many other things besides. Studio E174 (named after the E number that silver is as a food addidtive) was founded by Lucian Taylor and Elizabeth Callinicos. Lucian is an accomplished silversmith (amongst many other things, Goldsmith Hall commissioned work from him!) and Elizabeth is a well-established jeweller and installation artist who shows work all over Europe.

I will be attempting to post items on the E174 Facebook page, which you can like here: https://www.facebook.com/studioe174

So far it's been a great environment for me to get lots of making done. I've been busy! I'm getting closer to being able to work on new designs, which is a great feeling. Here are some photos of activities in the studio:

This is the main bench in the center of the studio, here with Polly Collins (she was learning tig welding with Lucian, the result of an award she won for her silversmithing work). 

This is a small torch (oxygen and propane I think it was) - a type of torch I hadn't used before, so something new to try! The regular torch had been kidnapped to go to Art in Action with the silversmiths (I think it was the Contemporary British Silversmiths). Art in Action is on this weekend!

 I've been asked to make a ring and a bracelet with some roses - so I practiced making roses with sterling silver, here are some results: left is a close up after polishing, right on my hand before polishing.

And a photo of the benchpeg with a whole load of circles ready to be turned into earrings.