On to final project...

The final project of the year finally came around where we had free reign to design in either ceramics or jewellery or both. I decided on jewellery as I have more ideas and my thought process is deeper with jewellery design. However, I decided to incorporate ceramics into my design because of reasons related to the theme. My theme was landscape and memory and childhood memories are a big part of me, whether I think about them or they're at the back of my memory and pushed aside. I was brought up in a small rural community in the village of Ystradgynlais called Cwmgiedd. It's a close knit community and everybody knows each other there. Its very rural and natural landscapes are everywhere to be found.

This village has given me some of the happiest memories of my life and I wanted to find a way to immortalize that so I created a head-piece and a neck-piece incorporating elements that represented (for me) my childhood and what Cwmgiedd was to me.

The sketchbook is always a starting point as well as designing through making and I lost count of the amount of times I drew then re-drew designs in my book until I finally found a way of working that I was happy with and that suited me and my personality. (It's taken me a year to realise and find this)

sketchbook pages

designing through making

I finally came up with 2 compositions I was happy with and that looked right together where all the elements just fitted like a puzzle. Here is the final result.

Head-piece

Neck-piece

The final pieces incorporated metal leaves, feathers, chain and porcelain discs that had childhood memories written on them.