Sup Brooch - final images for 'The Myth of The Aurora Borealis'

Following on from Work in Progress post last week (which you can see here) I thought you would like to see the final pictures for this piece and the Sup Brooch submission which was sent off last week.

'The Myth of The Aurora Borealis' , Brooch, plan view, November 2013 by Cari-Jane Hakes

Again, luckily the Hybrid Handmade Husband was on hand to stand in as my model.  I think he did a good job!

Brooch, worn by Julian Hakes, November 2013

'The Myth of The Aurora Borealis' Brooch, landscape view, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

Goodness, I have some exciting commissions to work on at the moment.  More on those next week mes amis - until then Bon Weekend!

Buy Good Things From Real People

I saw this:

Mural painted by Nicole Licht

and read this post by Pam over on the Mercantile Muse Shop Small / Give Big and ended up making this treasury:

'Buy Good Things From Real People' by hybridhandmade

Treasury tool by StylishHome.

featuring Etsy sellers from the UK and further afield elsewhere in Europe!  If you move your mouse over each image there is a link to the Etsy listing.

Beautiful things made by Real People.

Sup brooch - Into The Wild

My second submission for the Sup brooch exhibition mixed a little of my obsession with the 2007 film directed by Sean Penn Into The Wild and a bit of my Scottish heritage.

The Sup brooch exhibition will be showcasing brooches made for and worn exclusively by men.

Into The Wild, blackwood, sterling silver, copper and merino wool by Cari-Jane Hakes, November 2013

I wanted this piece to refer back to the form of a war medal - a 'brooch' that is proudly worn by many men. I was lucky to have the Hybrid Handmade Husband on stand by to model this brooch for me.

Into The Wild, worn, Cari-Jane Hakes, November 2013

Supbrooch - work in progress

There are a several recurrent themes in my work and one of them I have titled 'The Myth of the Aurora Borealis'.  I've worked on this series over the last few years and take it in hand occasionally, turn it over and examine it anew.  These pieces (like this ring) are like laboratory experiments. The ideas need to be shaken up, held over the Bunsen burner and examined in the sunlight.

For the Supbrooch exhibition (which I wrote about previously here) I decided to collide the remit of creating a brooch for a man to wear with this myth which goes something like this:

"There is an Eskimo legend which is woven around the mercurial properties of labradorite.  They say that the Northern Lights were once held captive in the rocks along the coast of Labrador.  The story goes that an Eskimo warrior found the rocks.  Using all his strength he struck the rocks with his spear.  Some of the light was set free to flicker and roam in the stratosphere but some of the light remained trapped creating the stone we call labradorite."

Supbrooch, work in progress, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

I really wanted to work with a bit chunk of Whitby Jet, a material that can be found close by (where seams of fossilized wood of the Monkey Puzzle tree are exposed along the coast) however, with the deadline for the exhibition in 3 days time I had to improvise with polymer clay.

Spear detail, Supbrooch 'The Myth of the Aurora Borealis', November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

 On reflection, I think I would like to restring the 'watch chain' with more angular pieces of labradorite but again, I had to craft this piece from what I had to hand.

Supbrooch submission, 'The Myth of the Aurora Borealis' by Cari-Jane Hakes

This piece was a delight to create, from sanding and carving the sleek, faceted landscape to the intricacy of the architectural silver insertion to create the fracture within the rock.

Time to take some better photographs.....and find a willing male model to strike a pose!

Supbrooch, worn, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

Shells and Barnacles

Goodness, the Hybrid Handmade House is a whirl of activity.  Not only am I busy making Man Brooches for the Sup Brooch (see here and here for information), deadline 22nd November 2013, I am also preparing for a local Christmas Fayre in the next village next weekend AND my Family Tree necklace is being featured in Notonthehighstreet's Advent Calender on their blog (you can see the necklace here).  I'll post a link to the Advent Calendar when it is published.

In preparation for the Fayre, I've been adapting some of my Etsy pieces.  This lovely etched, hydraulically formed shell necklace was given a bit of patination to bring out a bit more of the shell texture.

Etched Shell Pendant from Les Petites Callioux collection, Cari-Jane Hakes

These are really involved pieces to make so I don't make that many of them.  First the silver has to be etched and then hydraulically pressed to give it volume and 'pebbleness'.  It would of course be easier and much quicker to solder this to a flat back plate.  For this pendant, I took the road less travelled and decided to give it a hydraulically formed back plate.  Matching the two halves up and getting a good, clean solder join is very time consuming but needed to be done.  I was determined to create a pendant that had the tactility and shape of a pebble and so a curved, hydraulically formed back plate was essential.

I've lengthened the chain a little which makes it easier to hold the pendant in your hand and have added some little 'barnacles' to extend the language of the pebble up through the chain.

Barnacle detail to the chain of the etched Shell Pendant, Cari-Jane Hakes

etching detail, Cari-Jane Hakes

You can see more photographs of this piece in my Etsy shop here.

Finally, Society 6, the lovely people who print and ship my still life photographs are offering free world wide shipping with this link.  How fabulous! Click here to see more.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have big, wild, faceted man brooches to make!

What I caught in my net

I haven't lived this far north in a long long while (24 years to be precise) and so somehow the advancing darkness, the way that night seems to claim larger and larger portions of the day, is a little surprising.  The hours where the light is at full stretch are short.  There is much hurrying at the weekend to be out and about and in its full glare.

Fishing trips to the coast are high on the agenda.

What I caught in my net, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

Elsewhere in the Hybrid Handmade House, we are celebrating the advancing dark with stories by torch light. We aren't planning on hibernating anytime soon!

A busy week awaits mes amis!  On wards and Upwards!

Brooches, Birds and Blokes

Fellow jeweller, Dauvit Alexander (also known as The Justified Sinner) has just scooped a nomination for the honour of being Scotland's Most Stylish Male, how fabulous!  It will be presented tomorrow night at the bi-annual Scottish Style Awards.  Rather aptly, I am therefore humming along to Bowie's Space Oddity, "and the papers want to know whose shirts you wear...."

One thing led to another which resulted in these just fantastic photographs being shot for Dauvit's contribution to Supbrooch, an online exhibition and book which will feature brooches made and specifically worn by men.

Brooch by Dauvit Alexander "Richard III" 
with scarf/hood by Scottish company, ChouChou 
and jacket in Harris Tweed by Ten30.  Model: Stew Bryden, Superior Agency.

The combination of the styling, these truly majestic birds and Dauvit's burly man brooches really grabbed my attention.  I have kept flicking back to them all this week.  There is something very hauntingly beautiful about them. The images featured here are taken from Dauvit's Flickr stream.

 Brooch by Dauvit Alexander 
"Imperial Overcoat Star Of The Order Of Aksentii Poprishchin" 
with jacket in Harris Tweed by Ten30. Model: Stew Bryden, Superior Agency.

Brooch and jacket as before, Model: John Morris of "Colours" agency.

I recommend you take the time to check out Dauvit in all his Scottish Stylishness over on his blog.  I wonder if he's picked out his outfit for tomorrow's shindig?

I shall leave you with this image, one of the official photographs take by Simon Murphy. Watch out Dauvit, you've got competition!

Brooch by Dauvit Alexander "Richard III" 
with scarf/hood by Scottish company, ChouChou 
and jacket in Harris Tweed by Ten30.  Model: Stew Bryden, Superior Agency.
Photographer: Simon Murphy

Society6 shop

Well as if opening the Notonthehighstreet.com shop wasn't enough (you can see it here)

I decided to upload a few more images into my Society6 shop which can be found here if you fancy a little peek.

The fabulous people at Society6 print my images out using the highest quality paper and canvas and then ship them out to customers all over the world!

For fellow photographers / illustrators / artists I highly recommend opening your own shop on Society6.  It is quick and very easy - as long as you don't get side tracked looking at all the other great images for sale on there.  I have about a hundred favourites earmarked for myself and for gifts.

A Really Rather Remarkable Thing

It is not an exaggeration to say that I was completely  captivated by this tiny wasp's nest that I found hanging from the rafters.  It is a thing that is completely and utterly beautiful to me.  As I rolled it around in the palm of my hand, inspecting the 'craftmanship', the neat coils of the the outer paper skin and the perfect geometry of the protected interior, I unpacked the reasons for my fascination with this tiny little object.

The plain and simple reason is that its very construction is an arrangement that I emulate time and time again in my work as a goldsmith.  I fabricate tiny constructions from silver, to create a protected void, into which precious objects become suspended or set.  The idea is pedestrian perhaps but hinges on a more complicated ideal; that it is what is inside that really matters.  The partially hidden bit of ourselves, the bit we examine everyday, the bit that gets tested, that grows better if we try, that begins to die if we neglect it. Its the part of us that enlarges when we are generous to others and that part that shrinks when we only focus on ourselves. Perhaps this is an ideal that is too large for a piece of jewellery to take on.

Perhaps it is too lofty an ambition for an object to aspire to be.  Perhaps an object made from precious metal should just be beautiful for the sake of it.

But I don't think so.  And so, I shall keep making these tiny meditations on what constitutes 'the good life' and hope that the intentions with which they are made shine through.

Jewellery by Cari-Jane Hakes 2010-2013

We're walking in the forest....

I managed to persuade the hybrid handmade helpers (my two young sons) to come with me on a hike.  I let them take the swords that they had just made from a old broom handle, tape and cardboard which allowed them to pretend they were actually on a Ninja mission!

Flowering Ivy, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

Forest Floor Organic Structures, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

In between and underneath and hiding way down low I managed to find some tiny treasures.  Soft and stippled textures, tiny pods of satellite pollen on stalks, shooting outwards, hoping for a transfer to somewhere else.

A Sienna Symphony, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

Quiet Folds, November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

And when the rustle of shuffled leaves subsided I found these tiny folded compositions of velvet soft layers resting quietly on the edges of fallen trunks.  The colour of the canopy with its radiating tones was like a drop of watercolour pigment painted onto damp paper.  The underside reminds me of the faded soft netting edge of an old ballet tutu.

Textured Porcelain,  November 2013, Cari-Jane Hakes

The Ninjas were happy to abort their mission on numerous occasions to share in all these little discoveries.

It was a good walk.  Time well spent.  Mission accomplished.