Wild Wild Wood

Epping forest on a foraging expedition, what a beautiful forest of magical old trees.

Find of the day! An incredible, what I believe is a part of a Rat skeleton.

Now available at the Wellcome Collection shop

Rather fittingly and following on from my last post, you can now find a collection of my jewellery at the Wellcome Collection in London, just opposite Euston Station. For other stockists around the country see my stockist page: http://www.kategilliland.com/page10.htm

The incurably curious.... The Wellcome Collection

I visited the museum this morning and wanted to share with any one who will listen how great it is. I always go straight to the medicine man collection a fantastic visual education, with the perfectly picked, life and death symbols from history. From memento mori to phallic amulets there are so many fascinating and weird objects, so thought I would share a few faves. 

Half dead, half alive, often these models and paintings are depicted as the rich and imply that death strikes all.

 'seen as either the end of a journey or the beginning of a new one. Death has always been a vital concern to the living'

Reliquary Chest- A reliquary 'bear ones petitions directly to god'

Peruvian mummified male c. 1200- 1400

A great mix of amulets.

I would love to own these.

The display of the artificial limbs looks like a Victorian invention in itself. Some really intricate and decorative limps and some simple wooden carved ones. 

I would love to have visited Henry Wellcome's house!  

Just had to share this too! A nudist cycling outing! Brilliant!

London calling!

So first of all......

Treasure

A very exciting show to be a part of indeed and met so many interesting people. It was great to be part of the Design Space collective once more and we might not have enjoyed the setting up too much but a few drinks at the private view soon sorted us out.

I took several new pieces to the show. Let me know what you think! 

A few new pieces, more photos to come soon.

Theo Jensen's amazing kinetic sculpture

Theo Jenson

Thought this was pretty amazing and worth sharing, look at the video!

One messy 'Design Space'

Its been a while since I last blogged, It seems no time at all since talking about starting at design space and now I am almost half way through. It is great being in a shared workshop with all the girls, we really keep each other going. So I am now busy getting ready for the Britsh Craft Trade Fair in Harrogate, I'm working on  a few exciting new quirky pieces so that's been fun. 

This is my bench in the workshop, looking a a little cluttered at the moment. I prefer the term organised mess.

A small preview of what I'm working on at the moment.

Claws!

Design Space

Things have been going rather slowly recently, but hopefully that is about to change as I am now working in a workshop!!! Its brill because its in the jewellery quarter in Birmingham so its pretty great to be in amongst other jewellers!! I am actually really lucky to have this space as it is free and part of a scheme called - "Design Space is a Business Premises facility, part of Solutions for Business portfolio of publicly funded business support." - Thought it might be quicker to copy of the website. But I moved in today and met all the other people il be sharing with for the next year! So now i can make lots of pretty things and show you some pictures of actual work il be doing - watch this space!!!

These are some pictures taken from the Design Space website of the workshop.

Nursery Rhymes for a Nursery

This is some painting work I' ve been doing for Interiors for Kids, an interior decorating company aimed at kids. So thought id share some of the other work I get up to when I'm not making jewellery!

Humpty

Little Bo Peep

Mr Fox

I have managed to acquire this lovely stuffed fox that was about to be chucked out!! Its missing its ears, poor Mr fox, apparently kids have pulled them off as it was used for education for a bit. Going to see what I can create.You can see the plaster that has filled the head and also a bit of saw dust.

Lustre 2010

http://www.lakesidearts.org.uk/Crafts/LUSTRE/Lustre-2010/Young-Meteors-2010.html

Not long now until Lustre- time is going so fast got lots of things to get making, so watch this space!!!

Making a bench at home!!!!!

Well setting up at home is proving trickier than I had first thought! I am really missing the workshop facilities I had at Uni!!! So anyway, with money being rather short and in need of a bench to work on, I thought I would make my own(well with the help of my lovely dad)!!! We are using wood my dad had in his garage, every penny counts!So this is how its going so far.......

I'm holding a skipping rope here, very technical device, to pull the frame tight at the front!

Mouse on the cover!!

http://benchpeg.com/files/media/newsletter_archive/10%2008%2001_Issue%20174.pdf

A few pics of New Designers!!

Setting up!!

All set up and ready for preview night

Set up of my work at the show, was a smaller space than at degree show so took less draws.

New Designers went really well!!! Was amazing to be there, tiring but great!!! Nice chance to spend a bit of time with some of my course mates before we all departed! Was really good to get different peoples reactions to my work too, most positive and some not so keen on the dead things, but that is what I expected. Also at new designers my harnessed bird piece was selected to be displayed at the Association of Contemporary Jewellers Crossings conference, Recent Graduates Exhibition at West Dean College. That’s a long title!! I couldn’t attend the exhibition but was exciting to have my work on display there.

All done!!!

So I've now completely finished my degree in Design Crafts (and graduated!! woooo!!!). So thought I would put a few pictures up of my degree show and a few pictures of some of my pieces and a bit about them!!!

Degree show display- set up for marking

Display draws attached to the wall in different ways to add to a sense of curiosity.

Walsall Leather Museum

An old workshop in the leather museum, I love the old boxes and stained, well used work tops and draws. Its littered with interesting things, I used this as inspiration for the display of my pieces at the degree show.

And then the pieces......

Bird in silver harness, This Bird was given to me by a friend who found it in her boyfriends garden. It was completely intact and looks quite peaceful. The bird is freeze-dried.

Silver Monkey Skull, I found the actual skull in Tanzania on a beach, partly eaten by dogs!

Small mouse on suede bed, encased in silver locket,My favourite final piece in the degree show, this little mouses body was found in my boyfriends bathroom. It looked very peaceful and likely it had a small heart attack. It seemed a shame for the mouse to end up on some rubbish pile so I had it freeze dried and designed a case that would both protect it (in the same way a museum artefact may be preserved) and to create a small reliquary for the mouse.

Another final piece in the degree show. This crab I found on a beach in Swansea. There was a small cluster of a few whole crabs, amongst the flotsam, as if some one had placed them there very carefully.

New Designers

26th June 2010

Everything is moving really fast at the minute which is really exciting even though slightly knackering. Thought id just do a quick update. So next week im off to New Designers in London which im really excited about. Will be good to have a good old nose at all the other work there to. Have also recently found out I have been selected for the young meteors scheme at Lustre in November. Its a big craft fair I have been to see every year at uni and to take part in it will be a great opportunity and gives me real incentive to continue doing what im doing. Still getting use to the whole blog thing but shall take some more pictures of what im getting up to from now on, pictures speak a thousand words after all.