sterling silver pendant with yellow gold plate and embroidery pattern

 

same pendant in different light

 

sterling silver earrings with yellow gold plate and embroidery pattern

 

sterling silver round earrings

 

 sterling silver round pendant with yellow gold plate

 

sterling silver pendant with pink sapphires and embroidery pattern

 

sterling silver earrings with embroidery pattern

this work is available at Studio Ingot

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Connect 7 : Product Design/Jewellery NMIT Greensborough

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 Tonight at  Off the Kerb Gallery in Collingwood is the opening of the final NMIT Greensborough Product Design/Jewellery Graduate show.

It is much cause for celebration for the 7 students involved, but a very sad day for the jewellery world as the course itself is closing.
I am very sad about this. Sad and disappointed. Are institutions forgetting what is important about education? Does big always mean best? In Melbourne we have RMIT, Monash, NMIT Fairfield, Box Hill Tafe, all offering amazing courses for jewellery students, providing jobs for teachers, creating a jewellery environment which Victoria is renowned for. NMIT Greensborough has had an important place within this circle of institutions.
Caz Guiney has done an amazing job of running this course, along with an incredible group of teachers.

 In the words of Caz Guiney:

Yes it is the end of an era and deserves a send off. 

The Diploma of Product/Jewellery Design course has fallen victim to the economic rationalisation that is plaguing educational arts institutions. The Visual Arts Department at NMIT is slowly shrinking, ceramics and sculpture have both been swiped and the jewellery course was ‘retired’ and the last group of students graduate this year.


Please come and join the current group of 7 brave students to celebrate the work they have completed under difficult circumstances. We will be joined by staff and students from the past to acknowledge the significant contribution the Product Design course has made to the plethora of wonderful makers currently practicing in Melbourne. 

I have not been able to attach the invitation, but the students have set up a blog.
I wish the students and teachers all the best.



Connect 7
Off the Kerb Gallery
66B Johnston Street, Collingwood, Melbourne


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Samuel van Hoogstraten

Tromp-l'oeil Still-Life 1664

oil on canvas, 46 x 58cm

Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht
 

Still Life 1666-68

oil on canvas, 63 x 79cm

Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

 

Woman at a dutch door 1645
oil on canvas, 102.5 cm x 85 cm
The Art Institute, Chicago



I came across Samuel van Hoogstraten in the Autumn issue of Tate ETC. magazine in an essay on trompe l'oeil. Recently David Neale posted interesting images of Dutch still- life paintings which reminded me of how much I like this genre. The images above I find equally interesting. Paintings of personal collections, or keepsakes, or of the things that are important in an individual life. I am drawn to the coral necklace that the woman wears the same way I am drawn to the objects suspended in the paintings. Everything's  inclusion/selection/collection is carefully considered.

Baudrillard writes in The System of Collecting that:

Among the various meanings of the French word objet, the Littre dictionary gives this: 'Anything which is the cause or subject  of a passion. Figuratively and most typically: the loved object.'

He goes on to say that through objects the individual finds a kind of consolation:


In our era of faltering religious and ideological authorities, they are by way of becoming the consolation of consolations, an everyday myth capable of absorbing all our anxieties about time and death.


Jewellery and objects are collected and worn and exchanged. They have cultural and monetary significance. I write all this as I am trying to understand a number of things and the paintings of van Hoogstraten seem to have triggered this for me. Even though I love jewellery and objects, I love the making of both more, and hopefully what is made extends this dialogue of objects further.

images from here

earrings

Sterling silver earrings set with yellow sapphires, hand engraved

 

 

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Signet and Random rings

 

 

 

Sterling silver Signet ring set with Ceylon and yellow sapphires, garnet and chrome tourmaline

 

18ct yellow gold Random ring set with rubies, pink sapphires, white and champagne diamonds


both rings are at e.g.etal

pendants

 

Sterling silver Little pendants set with stones, hand engraved

 

Sterling silver and 9ct yellow gold Amulet pendant and Little pendants set with stones

all available at e.g.etal