Michelle Currie BA(Hons) Silversmithing & Jewellery, The Glasgow School of Art, 2020

My final year show at the Glasgow School of Art, is an exploration of the physical properties of ferromagnetic materials, combining them with the traditions of silversmithing and emerging technologies, exploring the beautiful collision of science and art which takes craft skills and fuses them with scientific enquiry, collaboration and scientific materials. My research includes observations of gravitation experiments at Glasgow University’s Physics and Astronomy Laboratories and exploration of materials used in apparatus for the detection of gravitational waves caused by exploding stars. Combining my interest in physics with my creative process to develop wearable objects using iron particles and iron oxide powder, I document their reactions when subjected to a strong magnetic force. These explosive moments are captured to form miniature static sculptures inspired by the capture of gravitational wave data by scientific apparatus, confirming the warping of spacetime. I employ the use of magnetic forces to warp and manipulate ferromagnetic materials, highlighting the unseen forces acting on our physical experience. These explorations are combined with traditional silversmithing methods such as lost wax casting, 3d printing and granulation to form wearable, interactive objects that aim to encourage conversations around collaboration of scientists and artists engaging in scientific research and discovery. My future aspirations are to continue to collaborate with particle physicists and astronomers in research to promote their work and encourage artistic engagement in the sciences. Ultimately, I would like to undertake a PhD in Silversmithing Techniques and the Engineering of Gravitational Wave Detection Apparatus.

A special thank you to the wonderful engineers, researchers and scientists at the University of Glasgow, Physics and Astronomy Department for their kind assistance with my project research and allowing me access to their amazing labs.

Alaitz MM. Gavilan is a visual artist originally from Barcelona now based in Glasgow. Inclined towards jewellery making as mode of expression, Alaitz also engages with other self-taught artistic practices, like illustration and collage, to present her work.

The series of objects designed for this collection derives its meanings from social movements and reflects on how the fundamental rights that we take for granted today have always been achieved by public protests and demonstrations on the streets, and very often with violence involved. To create an aesthetic of resistance, of a type of distressed materiality, the jewellery pieces have been abused or damaged; putting the enamel under the pressure of a press form, for example, and creating a crackled texture, as metaphor of a broken individualistic society, characteristic of neoliberal economics and politics. The objects here call for empathy and solidarity, a demand for a more community-minded society, symbolised in these small-scale works. Importantly, this collection is part of a broader personal project to expand silversmithing & jewellery designs and bring these closer to a wider spectrum of people, from different social classes, a goal of many previous generations of craft-activists.

The works shown on this showcase are works in progress, (the completed pieces will be shown at a later date) yet the artist is open to commissions.

My interests in the traditional crafts skills of silversmithing has influenced my decision to seek the transformation of vessels, predominantly domestic items. I considered various utilitarian objects in my initial research exploring shadows and was intrigued to find that I could use this method to alter and reimagine forms to create aesthetically appealing works. I take great satisfaction in working with metal, researching ways of combining such traditional silversmithing techniques with modern technology. My intention is to create pieces that are inspired and enhanced by technology, and that appear to create a juxtaposition with traditionally crafted forms, but which show, in fact, how these modern techniques and materials contribute to an evolution of form, shape and structure of vessels. In researching changing forms and technology I used parametric design, which has greatly influenced my design decisions. Small alterations to the parameters of vessels shown in this collection produce differing forms with similar styles. This process allows me to make visible communication between two elements of my designs; the traditional and technologically enhanced.

I would be delighted to accept commissions.

Alice is a multi-award-winning jeweller and silversmith who celebrates the chaotic beauty of crystal and mineral formations through the medium of metal. Trained in both traditional and contemporary fields of metalwork and design, Alice’s work re-imagines rare mineral specimens as functional jewellery and objects, without depleting precious resources.
To create these rock-like textures and forms, Alice uses ancient techniques of chasing and repoussé. Alongside developing this technique, she has spent much time studying the effects of incredible metals, titanium and niobium, that provide bursts of colour to her jewellery designs, using the modern technique of anodising. Now acknowledged as her specialism, she is one of only a handful of metalworkers in the UK working with niobium. From 2020-2021, Alice will be studying at Bishopsland Educational Trust, a prestigious residential course specialising in ancient crafts of jewellery and silversmithing.
If you would like to discuss a commission, please use the links below to contact me.

Since 2013, I have attempted merge the world of jewellery with the craft of aerogami. Having refined my folding skills in paper, I was ready to take the folds to metal. My work this year is made with the intention of deeper expression for the passion in my own designs of paper planes. With the algorithmic patterns of thought during the process of making and flying them to the flight paths they took through the air I intended to explore. Designs drafted incorporated the fusion of my paper plane designs with their real-life counterparts that inspired them. combining the two halves of the symmetrical airplane wings with the asymmetry of paper folds gives way to a line of abstract aircraft forms. With the initial scoring and folding of brass and copper proving too time consuming, aluminium proved itself a lightweight and malleable metal to work with. Tail fin portions of the models allowed for a multiplicity of aluminium piece to friction fit together.

As my ‘Aluminiwings’ developed and their versatility became realised, I aspired to lock them together permanently via riveting to allow for a small degree of movement and pave the way to make them functional brooches and necklaces.

Jiayang Xie work as a jewellery designer and maker is concerned with the intercultural meanings of traditional Chinese and Japanese art. In 2019, she created designs for Splendour, an exhibition and performance, commissioned by the Royal Museums Greenwich, London, as part of the celebrations commemorating the Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. This work was also shown at the Queen’s House, Greenwich, London, in 2019. In 2020, she contributed works to the Goldsmith’s Craft and Design Council Exhibition and the Growth & Evolution Jewellery show. She intend to continue her research into established techniques of art and design from China and Japan, blending these with contemporary, conceptual works in future practice.

This collection investigates traditional Chinese and Japanese art, which share a vibrant, natural, floating line and a form of beauty in established patterns; and importantly a unique understanding of space. Transforming these ideas into the designs, the jewellery pieces for this collection are statements that can shed light on these conventional approaches to aesthetics in decorative objects. Each piece is intended as a translation of these methods, of the intimate connections between the human body as both vessel and wearer. The language of traditional techniques (especially filigree) are used in these designs in order to develop and explore the interaction of space and decoration in a different approach to contemporary studio art and design.

All design is available for commission.

The use of ephemeral materials for recording sound registers internally within us as they are signifiers of its impermanence. My project aims to provide a new way of preserving a memory on a precious metal. My work focuses on music and sound’s ability to provoke memories. To create a piece of jewellery that can effectively engage one in an audible way as well as in a visual way. I wanted to create a series of objects which elevates the audio and visual experience and which has the capacity to preserve a memory in precious metal. In order to do this I created a musical box where two detachable wearable rings replace the main tumbler in the mechanism.
For a series of ring boxes that could represent sound I looked at experimental forms of musical notation, specifically the work of Raoul Auger Feuillet. I then designed a three dimensional notation system through the form of finial tops.

My practice is informed by the natural world. I am particularly interested in the ways in which nature persists in city environments, despite the overwhelming destructive power of pollution, toxic atmospheres and micro-climates. I have established a making practice that focuses on the relationships between materials and sustainability.

For my final year collection, I designed and made jewellery that relates to a classical idea: res in urbe. This describes an environment where nature is as important a feature of urban design as monumental architecture. The phrase seems particularly relevant today as some city planners and architects have realised the health benefits of green spaces in cities. My jewellery in Finding Nature reflects the textures of leaves, grasses, vegetables and other natural produce. The pieces are intended to evoke sensory experiences when worn or touched; to perhaps act as de-stressors in hostile environments.

Chang Wu BA(Hons) Silversmithing and Jewellery, The Glasgow School of Art, 2020

How Autistic space is understood is the basis of an idea for this collection. Autism is often associated with negative attitudes, such as fear, panic, anxiety and inferiority. Such attitudes can cause people with autism to be more defensive, in an attempt at a more robust sense of self-protection. In this collection of designs, these relationships are explored, with an emphasis on the self-conscious and self-absorbing nature of Autism Spectrum Disorder. The collection presents objects that might aid us in communications between these complex interior worlds and other external environments. This is achieved in the process of designing these objects: as the silver changes from a cold, hard to a soft, malleable fine line, silver wire is woven into an open and semi-enclosed space. It moves from its original isolation to a state of openness. Silver wire interconnects with the wearer on contact, but the woven reasonable space maintains a little safe distance from being disturbed, and the soft metal mesh leaves only traces of contac

My theme is about a childhood fantasy of skies, with an idea of reproducing childhood naivety. The fantasy symbolizes my curiosity about nature, the universe, as a child, while providing a beautiful sky unique to myself in the complex world of adults. My exploration revolves around clouds in their fluffy and plump shape, playing with clouds in a series of movements. For example, when I was a child, I often wanted to get hold of it, close in it, and go through it, so I will perform visual movements like enclosing, piercing, and wrapping in my design process. The design turns childhood fantasies into real-contact experiences.

Christine Milroy, BA(Hons) Silversmithing & Jewellery, The Glasgow School of Art, 2020
Goldsmith’s Precious Metal Grant Winner, 2020
Goldsmith’s Precious Metal Grant Skills Swap 2020

Creating the effects of cobbled streets, miniature harbours, sheltered by cliffs, and historic fishing villages in the form of jewellery pieces, may seem ambitious. However, the processes involved in the practice of jewellery designing and making compress such impressions, allowing for the representation of natural aesthetics, of subtle shapes and colour palettes in small details. This collection evolved from my travels through some of Scotland’s historic coastal villages; unique places that combine traditional domestic architecture with a timeless, almost ‘Wabi Sabi’, attitude to seafront imagery, where lobster creels, fishing nets and tiny boats, lie alongside startlingly white-washed walls, below crow-stepped gables. Photographs, sketches and digital drawings were made from these appearances, in an intuitive response to each environment, to form the basis of a series of jewellery objects evocative of time and place, with the structures, colours and shapes of a distinctive Scottish landscape, captured on an intimate scale.

Yitong Zhang is an object maker and silversmith. In 2018, Yitong went to California College of the Arts as an exchange student, where she started to practice with everyday objects and materials. In the same year, she won the Friends of the Glasgow School of Art Travel Bursary Award. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Outstanding Scottish Student of the Year Award, her works have been exhibited in the Itami International Jewellery Exhibition, Japan. Yitong won the Goldsmiths’ Craft & Design Council Award 2020, her work ‘In the Bottle Cap’ has been exhibited in the Goldsmiths’ Hall.

According to Greenhalgh, things we use and make are not neutral objects but embodiments of ourselves and cultural values. This collection of works investigates people’s relationships with everyday objects, exploring the complexity and contradictoriness in people’s desire and character reflected by objects they live with. The processes of thinking and making are stimulated by people’s subconscious way of using objects, and questions that are provoked when objects are incorporated within functional behaviours. How objects “talk” is a question, responding to semiology and theories surrounding how objects might be ‘read’ as text. For this collection, the work of Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard is acknowledged by reference to symbolic meanings reflected in the values placed on materials, skill, and effort of objects; with Baudrillard stating that: ‘We live by object time’ (1970). These works ask the viewers and users to connect with their time and space, in a dialogue that invites discussion of agency in human-object relations.

This collection portrays structures that capture the inner workings of the mind and nervous system. The primary source of influence is neuroscience imagery, in particular brain scans used to diagnose various medical conditions. These detailed images of the brain and how they bring to light the intriguing shapes which lie within us all, are revelatory, natural cartographies of one of the most mysterious organs of the human body. The collection represents a process of practice in development; such structures, as they evolve, resemble forms of the human body similar to plant genetics, which, in Darwinian terms, comprise ‘endless forms’. Therefore, the objects presented here convey these interconnections between humans and the natural world; exquisite parallel realms of arts and science on a micro-scale.

Objectification can be defined as seeing and/or treating a person, usually a woman, as an object. Exploration of the female form was the starting point of this research, studying the evolution of beauty standards throughout the ages. Initially, the life drawing tradition marked the beginning of this investigation, that allowed for an exploration of the shapes and movement of the body; extracting form, colour, and pattern directly from drawings and incorporating them into these designs. Each pose has its own fleeting image that has to be captured there and then, and can be interpreted in different ways by the viewer. The collection presented here, focuses on Western ideals of beauty and the extremity of the objectification of women in our culture. In today’s society women are under constant pressure to ‘correct’ their bodies to an ideal image, to the detriment of their mental health. Therefore these pieces form a collection of vessels focussing on the mental health crises in young women reflected in the myriad pressures society places upon them. This collection of smooth, organically-shaped and brightly patterned objects are representative of the character and collective nature of specific relationships.

*Commissions for vessels starting at £350*

Architectural materials, structures and colours, in a predominantly urban setting, represent the starting point of my design process. From these initial observations, of geometric shapes, repetition, pattern and line, I construct experimental, digital schemes for transfer to 3-D model making, first in paper and then in metal. The resulting jewellery designs reflect these architectonic influences, objects of wearable pieces that constitute a human-scale relationship to the urban environment. My work continues to explore these dimensions; how we model our environs and how, in turn, these shape us.

Finley McNamara is a 21-year-old free range artist. Raised in Burlington, Vermont and studying Silversmithing and Jewelry design in Scotland at Glasgow School of Art. Their work is influenced by the things they love, bright colors, walks in nature and listening to music, they are rarely seen without a pair of headphones on their ears or around their neck and a pocket full of interesting things they found on the ground. Their pieces are abstract interpretations of everyday life, focusing on intuition, and growth over time. These pieces are created using paint, canvas, textiles, thread, and beads, as well as precious metals.
All are one off pieces but commissions are welcome for new pieces with similar appearances as well as dreaming up fun new things.

I’m Ahsun Hwang. I’m originally from Seoul and moved to Glasgow to study at Glasgow School of Art. My idea: We live in a world of intense competition; everyday “challenge”
It’s not beautiful anymore. 
In particular, I think there is a certain life frame in Korea. 
Time to study, time for college, People go to the army, Job preparation time 
, Time to get a job, marry and give birth…
But when I came here, I thought it’s great and beautiful to see people who continue the challenge. 
I wanted to express how pleasant and happy we were to challenge something. 
At first, I studied the word challenge in the image of jumping from the water’s edge. 
And something, or someone floating on the water, 
The images we have left in the water, the waves, have also expanded my research. 
This looked like life, like a normal day. 
I hope through my work, people will be able to comfort and spend their busy time to pursue something in everyday life.

My work for this collection is the culmination of interests in a range of ideas and themes I addressed in both my personal and professional roles. Previously, I worked as a costume and jewellery designer in film and subsequently, in training to be a silversmithing & jewellery designer, I learned how such objects perform as part of a narrative in people’s lives, both in fiction and in everyday encounters. I grew up in the Dorset countryside, remote from the kinds of popular culture that I enjoyed: film, animation, cartoon characters, pop stars and celebrities and have sought out forms of avant-garde culture during my student years. Therefore, this collection summarises these personal and professional views, especially ‘drag’, which is a powerful influence on my work more generally. Incorporated within bold, over-sized floral patterns and pastel colour schemes are ideas of the performance of gender identity, emphasising notions of ‘femininity’ in this series of jewellery pieces.

I would be delighted to accept commissions, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

My practice encompasses a range of ideas and skills derived from my experiences as cook, host and maker.
The processes leading to the designs for this collection involve an immediate correspondence between the kitchen and studio; an acknowledgment of the transferable craft skills required in making meaning from natural and sustainable produce.

This is no easy assimilation and my collection, Féasta, challenges specific values inherent in the possibilities of food as material, as well as sustenance. Féasta recognises deeply-embedded cultural significance in food sourced from remote, Scottish estates, farms and kitchen gardens,reflecting social habits surrounding the cultivation and preservation of the production of food over many generations. The collection, in the form of functional and sculptural pieces, captures an eternal life-cycle, from produce, plate, object and experience.

Since Féasta, I have launched my brand, &ILC as a development of my work with food as a material.

&ILC is Jewellery for the conscious consumer; Using raw egg shell from Scottish kitchens I create pieces with delicate egg shell inlay, forming intricate yet minimal designs. I want to challenge our ideas of waste and make people appreciate the beauty in these unique and in abundance materials. My dyeing methods are devised from vegetable compost allowing for my whole process to be organic, inspired and made with food. I work with Brass, Jesmonite, wood and Cotton, a further conscious decision to maintain this sustainable stance on materials.

Practicality meets aesthetic to create statement yet minimal jewellery.

Paige Baitey, BA(Hons) Silversmithing & Jewellery, The Glasgow School of Art, 2020

Positivity of materiality in objects of design is the focus of this collection of wearables. How emotional support, through tactility, functionality, wearability and manipulation, might be offered to users, is explored in these artefacts. Specifically, materials such as cork, balsa wood, paper, card and other palpable features are incorporated within the base of the designs to achieve the desired illusionary experience. The final results are realised by means of digital manipulation, with each pattern worked up in adobe illustrator, creating a networked, pre-prepared plan that translates into finished pieces with maximum movement and connectivity with each component, including acrylic, leather and laser rubber. Ultimately, the collection presents the user/wearer with a multidimensional experience, pieces of jewellery that can be deconstructed, to act as autonomous objects that exist alone comfortably, while remaining supportive, physical and substantial when worn or handled.

Melissa McNeil, BA(HONS) Silversmithing & Jewellery, Glasgow School of Art, 2020.

Fossils are the remnants of previous lives lived, the ossified remains of a once vital life force, now petrified and suspended within a many-layered crust or hardened stone. Rather than encounter the fossil as a ‘dead’ entity, however, in my practice, fossils represent the spark of life, memories of life as it once was. The particular tactility of these objects and their display as palaeontology, entomology, and archaeology, provide an especially appealing aesthetic quality, easily transferable and reproducible as objects of jewellery, in precious metals. In a sense, my design process is an attempt to create a ‘micro-museum’ of personal, often nostalgic memories, with meanings that are both individual and universal.

Designs for this collection derive from my engagement with photography and its particular handling of perspective. Over the course of development in this collection, the different ways in which photographic processes can distort, skew and determine perspective has provided models and sketches that can be transposed into contemporary geometric tableware. For example, the concentration on line and scale is especially useful when working with materials such as Perspex, which is included in many of these objects. Perspex, combined with metal form a highly polished aesthetic, well-suited to designs for dining. The precision with which Perspex can be cut with a laser enables a good deal of artistic and creative freedom, as demonstrated in the presentation of this collection.

Technology is a subject of fascination and exploration and this collection represents a developing conversation around Artificial Intelligence and the everyday. Applying Artificial Intelligence to jewellery, often considered an everyday object, reveals a number of anxieties and apprehensions in how we might utilise technology in future designs. In particular, our fear of ‘deepfakes’ combined with future generations of ‘trans-humans’ led to an investigation of human faces as a subject matter for this collection. Research for the collection asked whether this technology might be used solely as a tool or source of inspiration; or might it be truly creative in a human sense? This also led to wider philosophical examination of our God-like role in creating forms of digital consciousness that may ultimately be more permanent and powerful than ourselves. By mimicking AI’s function of sculpting, and extruding AI generated faces, the collection consists of wearable artefacts that reflect a conversation between the machine and me.