Love and Courtship

The theme for Anglo Platinum was Love and Courtship rituals in South African Cultures one of the requirements for the competition was to have a box to store the jewellery in. I decided to use the same Shwe-Shwe fabric that I retrieved the earring design from and covered my own box that I made, I then used a ribbon and button to bind it.

'Kwa-Nobantu' -for the people

These earrings were the start of a new technique in my jewellery which involved a direct manipulation in the metal; they were brought about by designing for the Anglo platinum competition with a theme of courtship rituals in South Africa.
I love African shwe-shwe fabric and wanted to use this as a design reference for the jewellery I was going to make, I chose this particular design as I was attracted to its interesting circular pattern. I then had to come up with a way of creating this design in metal. My first thought was to pierce out the pattern but it was quite a predictable way of doing it so I tried thinking of other ways in which to portray the pattern. After much thought I went to my 4th year lecturer to speak to him about my design and he showed me a technique he had discovered which was creating a perforated surface with the use of punches, it was a really interesting and different technique so I decided to use it. I roll milled the sheet metal with sandpaper to create an interesting matted texture on my metal; the purpose of this was to generate a contrast between the raised burs which were burnished and the metal below it, so the edges of the burs stood out effectively.
I really enjoyed the overall look of this technique so I decided to pursue it and experiment with patterns from sacred Geometry.

Playing around with shapes

These were just some pictures I took of the shwe-shwe elements. I placed them in different positions to see the interraction between them and to see what other ideas could spring from them.

Anglo Platinum process

This was the start of my anglo platinum earrings.

I first had to forge my own tapering punches into different shapes such as Tear Drop, Marquise and a line punch. They where made by forging the tapers and the sanding and grinding to the shapes needed.

I had to experiment with various textures for my metal I decided that both sides should have contrasting textures so the one side I made polished and the other I rolled through the roll mill with sand paper to give a matted grainy texture. The front side I decided should be the matt texture so that when punched from the polished side, the burs (raised parts) could be burnished and would stand out from the matt finish.

I then had to carefully measure where my punches had to be placed so that the pattern would be evenly spaced . The punched holes also varied in sizes from large in the middle to smaller towards the end so I had to be carefull of how hard I hit them into the metal.