A right pair.

Torch blown borosilicate vessels set in a soapstone base.

A moment of illumination in the midst of a few ceramic head onlookers.

all metalworking and no glass makes Jack a dull boy

well it is not like 2010/2011 was a glass blackhole
thought I´d share with you some more small things in a great big world

Here´s a happy-go-lucky modern lyre.
Brilliant neon colours Bullseye brand glass.
It rolls on its axis, 950 sterling silver.
I have made a few of these and they fly out the door!

           This is a beautifully balanced roller, enough to drive cats wild  chasing it around the carpet!

Borosilicate glass fumed with deep chocolate striations of pure silver inside the glass.

On a nice shop bought italian rope chain.

Next a homage to Mendel. I hope you can zoom in on all these photos with your fancy computers and here see the latticino strands of DNA inside the glass vials. 

No precious metal here, so this is costume jewellery. And what of it?!

 Here I collaborated with the master. A seed from outside our house, don´t know which tree it is though I can tell you the ciccadas love it!
Wrapped in the usual 950 sterling silver, forming the bottle top corked into a fun fun coloured perfume bottle. This bottle was coated with bounce forgiving resin on the request of the recipient.

Can´t go wrong with these glass bead necklaces!

Every bead is absolutely unique, endless joy under examination. 

Very very special, ask about early bird specials! ;p 

Here a technique immense in its rewards for me, enamels.
Plain and simple 950 sterling silver earrings.
Copper centres supporting the enamel. Only the enamel bright sky blue and canary yellow is all bumpy! Don´t see that everyday.

And last and by no means least, an acorn. Plant that seed, help it grow.

Proudly recycled sodium glass from fluorescent light bulb.

950 sterling silver cap topped with (at this stage in my career) 12k gold rectangular hoop.

In this photo hanging from two of those tough and twisted shop bought italian rope chains.

So, yeah. All these photos on the red carpet were the fruits of a visit to my friend Rodrigo Farhat, journalist and professional photographer.

Thanks Rodrigo and thank you all.

oh oh! and please check my blog next door to see what is happening when silica is involved but in a more million year earth-cooked kinda way.

Front Door

Um, this piece deserves some better photography, but for the time being
 this will have to do.
2010 while being an important year for my education regarding noble metal working and what was at first very reluctant avenues into gemology, was not such a good year for glass. Temporarily insurmountable obstacles with equipment and tentative partnerships looking for strength in numbers that went belly up, had me stuttering and starting with glass in the end of 2009/first half of 2010. By the time I had overcome these obstacles alone, my fine jewellery apprenticeship had begun, with its 14 hour days and little time to be anywhere except the workshop.
  All making this piece the more special. Barr some acid/burr engraved mirrors as gifts, this the only significant piece.
  Allegorical and biographical, a strong language has emerged in the twelve months of thought and 100+ man hours in this piece, a three part door panel.

There were other plans to seal the sides with additional resin panels, the acid etch swirls to be re-etched, however utility and time over ruled. Untitled.

perfume bottle necklace On say say Sale!

So after a lengthy interruption to services here, I´m back. 

This piece here is up for grabs! I´m thinking 1000 in local currency, though  I will happily and gratefully consider any serious offers.

This perfume bottle necklace is absolutely unique. Starting at the bottom the blown glass bottle has a side swing open top and a diamond tipped widget for annoiting oneself with ones favourite perfume or essence. I hope you like my half decent attempt at the latticino technique. Oh and it´s detachable.

Moving up each big silver hoop is hollow. I had previously  worked this piece all in solid silver, but scrapped that feeling the weight had to come down. And the weight did come down, some 70%! Though there is still over 85 grams of silver here all in all.

Each bead is also hollow, formed on the mandrel. An exciting process, the  last blast of heat on the previously untouched mandrel centre is where the magical puff of air (in this case Al2O gas) comes from. These beads I started well over a year ago imaging what the film Avatar would be like and I am glad I finished them before seeing the film! They are worth zooming in on but must be held and seen in person to fully appreciate their uniqueness, every one different, ranging from cool aquamarine transparents to redux metalised copper.

This is all connected to a solid silver chain and  a very trustworthy loop and t-bar clasp, all handmade by me of course.

 Oh and check out the t-junction bead, rock and roll baby!
So one lucky owner, who is it to be?

windows

infantile and ancient drawings

sketches for windows
thinking about universal images

and not thinking

thinking about cities

more stained glass

Stepping back in time, Photo clear out.
Here we have from the Floresta:
Part of a tryptic "Think , Eat, Rememer"; "Eat" here.

and "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

where are these pieces now? answers on a postcard please.

Leandro and Carolina, congratulations on the continued success of the school.

So we are going back a few years from now, special thanks to Marta de la Paz,
and even Tomas de la Hera.

Tree Fish

Symbolism. Tree of life. Salmon of Knowledge. Cultures, Technologies, Crafts.
This became an increasingly important piece and line of thought.
With a great debt of thanks to Janice. And Declan and Sandra and Vincenz.

Drive Me Forever

A lot of procrastinating behind this post. Time, emotions, memories, rites of passage, deaths on the cross.
Best just thank Ciara, Keith, Alba. And Sandra , Berta and Vincenz for their technical support.
A lot was learnt from this eight month project.

Currach Cacao

For Declan,

With thanks to Sandra and Vincenz.

Were these images not included? Patience, patience.

a little bit of Torch ´08

Time waits for no one.

This one here was worked to be injection moulded silver.

My favorites definitely included this cloud city one, here on the left.
Imagine a little silver basket with two miniature
travellers inside and you can share my dream.

Here, I believe Morena got the earrings at the front.
Who knows about the rest!
Note the fine example of latticino in the middle, yes!

Clearing out the old.
These tiny worlds never got there aspired silver necks. Nor organic fillers.
Still, looking good.
They all ended up as goodbye gifts for my students in BCN.
Did you get one? Please leave a comment.
Brasilian deep red, very shocky.

This here hemp weave with a handful of beads. All chosen for their hiddens worldsness.
I was so happy when Siobhan appeared to like this as a gift.
Her graciousness fueled me through a bumpy time.

I thank Robert Celades, Berta Sumpsi, Emma Yo and Tamara Loos for their teaching, materials, inspiration and help with all these pieces and of course, many more.

with reference to the previous two months

Phew! That was a heck of a time.
Working hard but feeling like it is all for the dark side. Well not all, just some.

This piece, fired griselles and enamels on glass, is being curated by Berta and Mikel.
Thank you Berta and Mikel for all your support and encouragement.

"And thank you Madeline and goodnight Vienna." ;)

Very busy with changes this month.
A quick entry to say yes I am aware that time waits for no man.
Float glass, UV glue and linseed oil. Time keeping varies with temperature of oil.
I like this piece, relatively quick and easy. Useful and fun to have in the kitchen while cooking Spanish rice.

portfolio feb06-feb08

>>Thank goodness I am not rereading this now, as I would surely not publish it, but this is the text for the portfolio introduction for NCAD, while comtemplating a return to my home town.

We have here Five promontory pieces and companion pieces hoping to express two themes. And how my thoughts progress through blind intuition onto a satisfying thing.

I feel very lucky to be so touched by my upbringing, jobs and travels. When open to the creative process influences and intuition surge. From the immediate environment and the less reported external environment, chemistry and structure, physics and scale, the power of words, the power of food, belief, colour, light. Many cultures many interpretations. Life
gives and takes endless hope. And experienced, working craftspeople, valuable wisdom.

Rather like hydrocarbons permutations of scale, material, structure, environ ment, assembly and especially location, change the worth almost infinity

Intake of light, output of light, reflectivity, reflections and projections colour form and presence emanate and affect mood and sense of being, to not say sense of the host- environment´s being.

Theme A is Names that are not what they are.
To give the example military intelligence is tired like the public at large is to hear how it doesn´t.
So, I look with my eyes and see: jewish bacon, chemical structure, a metal glass structure, animals, happy birthday, healthy food. To get an idea.
In the end it is not what the name pretends.

Theme B is Beauty. The hope, Science is natural, Nature is beautiful.
So concepting Science and Nature and Humanity give beauty, dependent perhaps on the humanity.
Adjectives abound, words are not enough.
Honing the craft and increasing understanding give me belief (in god/humanity).

5B "Window glass garden
Fused, enamelled recycled glass. In twin bathrooms, 90x15cm each.
All green like the jungle.
Transparent yet obscuring, protecting view for all parties.
A commission, this fed of its location of an architectural house in a jungle environment. The importance of this matching was valuably learnt.



Companion pieces show cellular life and flowers from paper to glass.

>>ufe, that wasn´t half the story. The red landscape came from the sweepings from off the floor of the stained glass workshops at FCVB stuck together with that wonderful resin from Germany. I love this one, upside dow, back to front, different lights...

The long window curtains, the sweepings from the atelier of Rossana Gobbi. Glass vandal extraordinaire, difficult and endearing, a definite influence.

This glass curtain installation was for a very lovely old lady who needed help in her house with her arquitect´s vision for crotch height bathroom windows. They really grabbed attention and coloured up a plain space while gratefully leaving a little more to the imagination for people who might happen to look in.

4A "Organ vases"
Off-hand blown. Pair, 20x20cm approx. each.
Not the musical glass instruments I yearn for.
Forms and patterns inspired by the inside of the body.

Companion pieces intuitive sketches and development. (Plenty of growth hoped for).

Necklaces

3B "Necklaces"
Lampworked jewellery. 140cm
Nature, nature and nature wherever I go shouts out to me.
Silent Colour. Big, long, heavy.

Companion pieces show paper to glass how to overall colour is made of many parts.

>>There was a lot of this going on for me in 06, ufe fun times on the torch, what seemed like an ternity when I wasn´t.

2B "Xicot de luz" -light boy.
Modern glass laminating technique. 120x 40 cm
Childlike size colour and moving parts beg interaction.
Erratically sawn edges polished smooth to touch make it is startling yet endearing.
Aims of innocence, violent harmony.

Companions pieces show a child´s head, different materials colours and forms yet the same qualities.

>>This glassboy is in the care of Casa Mike where it stands for peoples enjoyment and interaction. I am very happy for that ;)


These are the original terrible texts I wrote at the last minute for a portfolio in february 2008. It was for showing the best, most cohesive examples of the different paths I´d been down in glass work. And stipulated that I had completed between feb06 and feb08. So terrible where the texts the next day after spending a night exhusted with rewrites I removed them before printing, hoping the images would explain themselves. The white page showing reflections and influences, the language, i was going to say "labuage", of the title piece on the black page. Well, I think the photo set up in the printed book did a good job by itself. Here in a blog however there is more hunger for text, a substitute for not living the pieces in real life, for having to put up with my shaky photography.)

This text is for the photos in the first entry below, dec08.
o1A "suneats city"
Traditional lead Stained glass technique, 90x 45cm
One of tryptic panel that read "eat think rememer" in the cityscape.
Wavy transparent cathedral glass, the apparent emptiness of space, full of seeds and striations.
Green grisalle, fecund land depth as far as the eye can see,
yet obscured
Yellow screen print enamel, grains of sand dot out and "amg odyu oare godI" and occasionally combine. A mantra, proven valuable.
Coloured cathedral, deep blue sea, also the waves from the sun penetrating space and the earth.
A cause of life and death.
Companion pieces playfully thought of as being scaled up to colossal size.