It’s been a very long evening of slaving away over a hot bench (literally!) after several days of doing much of the same. And I’m exhausted.

I’ve been working on various bits and pieces, but the thing devouring most of my time has been an exhibition piece which I’m going to submit to a show called Expeditions to be held in Sydney in November. The exhibition will be entirely jewellery and holloware.

My piece is a response to my own expedition to Istanbul earlier this year and will be a small, non-functional box.

Above are the panels of the box all etched and ready to be scored, folded and soldered. These highly decorative etched areas will actually be on the inside of the box, with the outside being very plain and muted.

I’m sure anyone reading who has made metal boxes before will know that this isn’t the ideal starting point for make one! However, I didn’t want to invest in a large piece of (very expensive!) silver, only to not use large chunks of it. Of course they would get used at some stage, but it was too much to outlay in one go.

However, this turned out to be a happy (non) accident - particularly because I had also skimped a bit more and bought metal which is really a bit on the thin side for making a box of this size.

As I started making it I knew I was going to have to be really careful to stop it going wonky … but then it suddenly dawned on me that so much of Istanbul absolutely isn’t about crisp, clean lines and perfection. In contrast to some of the spectacular mosques and interiors of Ottoman-era buildings, much of the city crumbles in a really elegant way, with things tacked together and new parts of buildings simply built over the remnants of old ones - there are some buildings that look like they’re literally going to fall down at any moment.

So I decided to embrace the wonk (which is a highly technical metalsmithing term, I assure you!) - and to even push it further.

The result - which is currently sitting in a bath of pickle - is one deliciously misshapen box! Which was a complete and utter nightmare to solder, I can assure you. But now it’s close to finished I’m very pleased with it - and it captures Istanbul for me far better than my original intention would have.

Once it’s done I will try to take a decent photograph of it to share with you - which will be tricky as much of the detail is on the inside of the box and is glimpsed through the windows, but I will do my best.

By the way, if you’re interested, I’ve put some of my favourite photographs of Istanbul up on Flickr, which will give you much more of a sense of what I experienced in the city - and perhaps why I seem to be developing urges to travel in the Middle East proper. I suddenly find myself desperately wanting to go to places like Iran and Yemen. Yep, really picked my timing to get interested in travelling to such places.