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.

Recently a discussion (or two) in the Etsy.com forums momentarily strayed into the murky territory of the old art vs craft debate. There was also a discussion around the promotion of ‘high end’ jewellery - which to my mind when approaching jewellery from a contemporary craft perspective means collectable, conceptual, modern jewellery, but to others discussing the issue it simply meant ‘expensive’ or perhaps ‘heirloom quality’, which is a more traditional and simply different perspective to my own.

I’ve been thinking about it a bit since then - particularly as some of those who had something to say on the issue perceived it in such a different way to me, but also as I have also encountered some work by an incredible artist and craftsperson (Peter Callisen) which demonstrates some of the issues.

Some of those who commented on the art vs craft issue seemed to think that ‘craft’ is making that requires minimal skill or special knowledge to do, while ‘art’ (in relation to the making of objects at least) is something that requires more skill or knowledge. That’s very much at odds with how I’d make a distinction - if I were even to make one, which is a very difficult question in itself.

I would regard myself primarily as a craftsperson - albeit a contemporary version of one - even when I’m making pieces which are very much in the realm of sculpture and which I would describe as art objects. I make stuff, I’m a maker - there is a focus in my practice on me making things. To my mind, making things makes someone a craftsperson - a person who crafts. And I’m perfectly happy to be one of those people.

An artist I think is someone who focusses more on the conceptual side. And I think craftspeople and artists are often one and the same, depending on how they’re working and what they’re working on. A painter can be seen as a craftsperson as much as a metalsmith can.

For instance, there’s the incredible Ricky Swallow, an Australian who creates breathtakingly beautiful and well-made work in wood. He’s most definitely creating works of art because his work is highly conceptual in nature and is made to be seen in a gallery space, but he’s also absolutely a craftsperson - and an amazingly talented one at that. The photographed work is entitled Everything is Nothing.

And there’s the artist I came across in my virtual travels last night, paper artist Peter Callisen. He again is a wonderful example of both. If you have a look at his Mirage staircase (scroll down a bit on that page) made entirely from paper you will see what I think is an incredibly clever artist at work - who also happens to be an excellent craftsperson. The image below is of Når alt kommer til alt.

As for craft being somehow less valuable and less valued than art, I really do believe that’s utter rubbish. Personally I love the Japanese approach where there is no real distinction and works of craft are very highly valued indeed. Of course there is a value placed on skill and degree of difficulty in making things, but even given that there’s no reason why a person who sews amazing things should be valued less than a metalsmith, or a metalsmith less than a painter.

Maybe the differences in opinion I’ve seen in the Etsy discussion forums about this issue are more cultural than anything else - the people whose views surprised me are primarily American jewellery makers - and I gather contemporary jewellery is quite different in the US to what it is in Australia (and Europe too) - and maybe my views are fairly alien to them too!

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As for my own work, well I definitely do veer into creating works of art - conceptual pieces intended to be seen in a gallery space. Some are wearable pieces of jewellery, some look like they should be wearable but aren’t, others are very much sculptural - all of the non-wearables I’d describe simply as ‘objects’ - which also seems to be a fairly Australian and perhaps European way of thinking about them.

However, the jewellery I produce for sale is different in nature - there may sometimes still be some sort of conceptual basis or alternatively the designs may be entirely aesthetically driven - but they are intended to be worn and to adorn. To me they are pieces of craft - no matter how much skill or otherwise they require, no matter how valuable or otherwise the materials are.

So there’s my 2 cents on a very long-standing debate!

I had a call from the nice people at Griffith Regional Art Gallery today - which is in rural New South Wales for those of you who aren’t local. I’d submitted a couple of pieces for consideration for the National Contemporary Jewellery Award the Gallery hosts every couple of years and which opens in a few days.

They called to let me know that both have been accepted and will be part of the exhibition, which is great. I very much doubt I’ll win an award, but I’ll be in the ‘non-precious materials’ category with the other entrants, so we’ll see.

The two pieces I made are quite a diversion from a lot of the exhibition work I do - and were created in a really organic way without a really clear concept in mind. I wanted to create something with fairly dense pattern given my current mild obsession with it, but I had no idea what. Somehow I came to the conclusion that cutting patterns out of relatively thick tracing paper was the way ahead - a material I love as it’s so contemporary and crisp looking. I have always wanted to do something interesting with it.

So I spent a weekend with a cutting board and a scalpel and a Victorian-looking ironwork pattern I really like, not really knowing where I was heading - I’d been working so hard on this enormous web upgrade I’m in the middle of that I just needed to do something totally different, soothing and repetative.

Eventually I ended up with a number of square cut out panels and decided upon a choker with the pieces stitched together with silk thread at the corners and strands of silk to close it together. And that’s what I ended up with - as you can see.

However, after this exercise, all over my floor were interesting little cut out shapes of tracing paper - the negative spaces I’d removed for the choker. I ended up using some attached to the silk of the choker and then decided I would make a piece from these negative shapes and threaded them onto very very fine nylon threads to form another simple choker.

So the first piece is called Tracings (positive), the other Tracings (negative). Click on the images above to see larger versions.

Neither of these pieces are particularly easy to wear, but that’s not really the idea - a lot of my exhibition work alludes to being wearable but isn’t really. They’re much more about a play with materials and pattern and repetition.

The exhibition is on from 7 to 30 September 2006 with the judging taking place on the first day. I’ll let you know if I win anything!

My dear friend James went off travelling the world (again!) and after trekking through south-east Asia, India, Pakistan and Iran he landed in Istanbul. He fell head over heels in love with the city and has set up home there for the foreseeable future. I’d always wanted to visit the city and James being there seemed like a great excuse to do so, given that I was on the way to London anyway.

I found the city very intriguing and took a lot away in terms of thoughts about art and design - particularly relating to use of dense pattern and colour. I also developed a bit of an obsession with windows in the city and took many photos of them.

The outcome of this is that I’ve started work on a holloware object reflecting my Istanbul-related inspirations which I hope will form part of an exhibition called Expeditions which will open in October and is being run by my metal supplier, A&E Metals. To help motivate me with my work, I’ll tell you a bit about it.

The piece will be a small non-functional box which I plan to be sealed closed. Each panel of the box will have a small window cut out of it, based on the many photographs I took of windows in Istanbul. The interior of the cube will be etched with dense Turkish patterns which I plan to enamel in bright colours. The exterior will be plain silver, probably with a muted finish.

The idea will be that the windows allow light in so that you can see aspects of the highly decorative interior, but it will be difficult to see it all, reflecting the way I felt about Istanbul as being a fairly mysterious and partly impenetrable place.

At this stage I’ve done the etching of the patterns and they look good. But other than that the box is all in pieces and there is a lot of work to be done! I hope to make a start on it this weekend and will share my progress as I work.

I’ve had a very busy week or two setting up my new Etsy shop to directly sell some of my handmade jewellery, as well as finishing off a re-build of www.simonewalsh.com, a website that had been in ‘one day’ mode for longer than I care to remember!

The website probably looks not much different to most of you who visited before, but it has actually been entirely rebuilt to be standards compliant with a CSS layout and the content has been substantially updated. There’s also a new section to showcase some of my web and graphic design work as well.

Because I clearly have a lot of spare time (ha!), I’ve also decided to complement this work by building this blog for myself as well. The blog, Make Me, will be where I keep people informed of what I’m working on, thinking about and creating. It will be a place where I can generally ramble on about things should I feel the urge!

So, to give a quick rundown of what I’m working on:

art stuff:

On my bench are a few pieces of silver which are the beginnings of an art object I’m making for an exhibition entitled Expeditions which opens later this year. The piece will be a small non-functional box which relates to a visit I made to Istanbul earlier this year. I’ll write more about it as work progresses.

I also need to start thinking seriously about another exhibition which will be held in November called Takeaway. This show is for members of JMGA-NSW with the idea being that buyers will take their purchases away from the gallery in a takeaway box - in the empty space will sit a photograph of the piece. I have some ideas for what I’m going to do and will also write more about this later.

jewellery:

It might still be August, but I’m already gearing up for Christmas in terms of saleable jewellery. I’m slowly adding to my Etsy shop as well as catching up with demands from retail outlets. I also have a number of ideas for new pieces which I just need to find some time to actually get started on! I’ve recently made a large batch of findings and have also purchased a rather chunky amount of silver, so time is all I need.

web design:

This is what seems to eat up most of my life just now. I’m working closely with a programmer to build a whole new website for St James Ethics Centre. It really is being built from the ground up (fortunately with the exception of most of the content) and is an enormous amount of work, having taken up a large chunk of this year already and seeing me work up to 80 hours a week on it. Again, I’ll write more about how that pans out.

other stuff:

There’s always a lot of other stuff happening!

For example, I’ve just completed yet another issue of Filings, the newsletter for JMGA-NSW (Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group of Australia - NSW) of which I am the Editor (a voluntary Committee position) and there’s the AGM coming up in just over a week. I’m also just about to start work on building an interim website for the same organisation to replace it’s currently very out of date one, both in terms of content and code.

I’m also fairly seriously considering another year of University next year - in the Visual Arts arena, of course. I will need to research and write out a proposal by the end of October. Eeek!

…

And that’s about it for my first blog posting. Keep your eyes peeled for more!