Urchin

 

 

In late autumn, on a grey and drizzly day, I went for a walk at Shingle Street –  a strange, rather magical place on the Suffolk coast.

This is the home of the Shingle Street Shell Line – a line of shells made by friends from childhood Els Bottema and Lida Kindersley when they came here for a week in 2005, both recuperating from serious illness. To them it was symbolic of their recovery as they added to the line day by day and eventually it stretched from the cottages to the shore. They come back to repair any gaps and passers by add to it too…

This time I found that lots of tiny sea urchins had been washed up on the beach and I collected some to take home

I have been making a series of pairs of earrings based on these urchins. Some are made of silver and some of brass I found on the beach which has been patinated by the sea water. Here are a few from the series:

Urchin earrings: patinated brass and glass beads

Urchin earrings: patinated brass, brass

Urchin earrings: silver and bone with amber beads

Urchin earrings: silver and oxidised silver with olive jade beads

Series

 

I spent last week working hard on a five day course at wonderful West Dean College with the inspiring Zoe Arnold. This course was called ‘Composition, collection – a set of earrings’ and was all about making sets of mismatched earrings. Our first task was to make a set of 10 ‘quick’ earrings IN A DAY! Each had to relate in some way to the one(s) next to it so that they could be worn in different pairs. Here’s my set

Set made from brass, patinated brass, and glass beads

Needless to say we were working away ’til late that evening!

For the rest of the course we were working on a set of three earrings which had to be named by picking three words from a list we had been given. Zoe always sends out a brief a couple of weeks before the course starts so you can get those cogs in your brain whirring and collect and select  materials and anything you think might be useful  to bring along with you … and now, on Day 2, the designing process started, bringing to bear all the things we had learnt about balance from the set of 10 challenge.

I chose the words Winter Landscape Series for my set influenced by recent frosty walks on icy tracks and muddy paths.

I pinned up the photographs I’d taken (here’s a selection above) and made a few drawings such as these below

I made all the individual elements and laid them out before finalising how to make the connections using soldering, setting and riveting techniques. Here’s the finished result: a set of three earrings which can be worn in three different combinations.

Winter Landscape Series: silver, oxidised silver, driftwood, seaglass and bone

 

 

Net

 

 

Walking on the part of the beach near the fishermen’s sheds and among their boats old and new you pass lots of interesting paraphernalia : anchors and buoys, chains and nets… lots of nets in all sorts of colours and with mended patches and things tied on in a wide range of materials.

 

While out on the marshes …there is a different sort of netting; here it is covered in frost

I like the way  the holes or spaces can be regular or stretched and twisted.

I have recently started to include net as a theme in some of my jewellery … here are some pieces inspired by wintery weather!

Netted earrings: silver, oxidised silver, scorched and waxed driftwood

Netted earrings: silver, oxidised silver, scorched and waxed driftwood, rock crystal beads

Netted earrings: silver, oxidised silver and seaglass

 

 

Wood

 

I have been collecting interesting pieces of driftwood for a while. Some have holes and tunnels in them  bored by shipworms and gribbles. Shipworms , also known as teredo worms, aren’t in fact worms at all but worm shaped saltwater clams, while gribbles are little crustaceans.

 

I pick up small flat pieces in the hope that I might be able to use them…

 

I have been sawing little shapes out of my finds and started to explore using them in pieces of jewellery:

Driftwood earrings: silver, amber and wood

Driftwood earrings: silver, amber and wood

Coralline Crag

Coralline Crag  is a type of sandy limestone that is only found in Suffolk. It has fossil shells embedded in it and has been mostly avoided as a building stone as it crumbles too easily. However, some layers are a little more durable and you can see it has been used in some places locally – in the interior of Orford Castle for example.

I come across pieces large and small washed up on Aldeburgh and Thorpeness beaches. Here are two lovely ones

And here are some photographs of earrings I have made inspired by the imprints of shells and using some flat pieces of bone as promised in my last post!

Imprint earrings: silver and bone

Imprint earrings: silver and bone

Imprint earrings: silver and bone

Bone

Here is a selection of pieces of bone that I have found on the beach

What sort of bones are they I wonder? Are they from sheep or seals or possibly (as a friend suggested) a mermaid ?

I have been sawing out shapes and experimenting with them as I like the colours and textures with silver.

Here’s my first design

Shell earrings: silver with bone and shells from the beach

I have incorporated tiny shells – I think I found them on a beach in Scotland.

In my next post I will show things I have been making incorporating shapes cut from the flatter pieces of bone…

 

 

Brick

 

When I am out beachcombing I collect little pieces of brick which have been pounded and smoothed by the waves against the shingle. Are they all that is left of whole bricks? Is it too fanciful to imagine them coming from the four streets of buildings that were once beyond the Moot Hall and have long ago been washed away by the sea? Or are they the remains of bricks washed overboard while being transported from further North? Some pieces may not be brick at all but terracotta from broken pots or tiles.

 

Some pieces have other material still attached.

 

Here is a pendant I made from an unusual piece – there is a glazed stripe across it. I decided just to set it simply in silver.

 

 

 

Finds

When I incorporate something I find into a piece of jewellery I like the idea of adding the next chapter in its story. Supposing I find a piece of sea glass … originally that piece of glass was made from sand, a natural substance, by somebody who then made it into something, maybe a bottle. At some stage it has been broken or thrown away and has ended up in the sea where Nature, in the form of waves and the shingle on the beach, has tumbled it and smoothed it until I have come along and picked it up. Then it is worked with again and made into something new – a pendant maybe or one of a pair of earrings… back and forth it goes in a sort of dialogue between the natural world and some people in it.

Sometimes I find things that  I keep as they are – the sea has made a piece of strange jewellery that I don’t want to alter but could maybe provide some inspiration for me in the future…

 

Above and below are items made from some sort of plastic which has caught and embedded little stones

The rather small cotton reel below has started to unravel and woven itself into different sorts of seaweed

Flowers

Shore earrings: silver and moonstone

Shore earrings: silver and vintage coral

 

 

All sorts of wild flowers are blooming on the shingle at the moment and they have been inspiring me to make some jewellery!

 

Yellow Horned-poppy

Sea Kale

Sea Campion and Birdsfoot Trefoil

Stonecrop

Storksbill

Bindweed

Valerian

… and I’m not the only one appreciating them!

 

 

Trail

 

 

I have been working hard to get ready for the Studio Trail which is happening over the next three weekends.

There is a lot to think about besides the jewellery and display space. Here you can see what my packaging looks like :

 

All the exhibitors on the trail have matching pink and white bunting to help with highlighting the stops on the route. As a new participant I was given some of the same material  and have been busy with the pinking shears ! Mum got out her trusty old Singer sewing machine ( a present from her new in-laws in 1960) and gave me a hand with attaching all the pennants to tapes:

 

And so the list of jobs is getting shorter as the countdown continues … three days to go!