A collection of blog posts describing my creative processes. How I listen to music, see that music via my synasesthesia, draw it and make jewellery from it.
So much of daily life pulls us along at a breakneck pace, the clamour for our attention is relentless. Creativity is one area where putting on the brakes and slowing right down is the only way to get lasting results. When you use your creativity at work or in your hobbies, the same process will be acting on you as it does on me. Last week I wrote about my research into the master goldsmiths…
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with time-lapse photography while I draw music. You will have seen my Iron Maiden drawings in my last post. This series of bassist portraits stems from my live art project with solo bass player Steve Lawson. I wanted to find a little of what happens in those live shows in my daily studio practice in a form I could readily share with you. The dynamic and subjective nature of synaesthesia is…
I thought I’d do something a bit different this week, I’ve been experimenting with time-lapse photography while I draw music. It adds a whole new dimension to the work to be able to see it appear as if by magic as I sketch. Plus it is enjoyable and allows me to share the dynamic nature of synaesthesia with you. Here’s a set I worked up yesterday while listening to Iron Maiden. I was listening to…
I’m not one of those people who is going to disparage my time at art school as unproductive, I learnt loads while I was studying, nothing in education is ever wasted but what I do now has taken eleven years to master, and I didn’t start it at art school. I did copious amounts of drawing at art school, of course, I did. I studied everything of any interest to any project visually through my…
Do you listen to music when you are making jewellery? I’m answering a question asked by a customer today about my process for making jewellery: “I was wondering if you listen to music when you shape the silver, or just follow your drawing’s vibes? I got wondering, if there was a metaphysical and energetic influence of the music on the shape the silver takes, because of the physical sound wave of music, I am very…
It’s nearing the end of the year and the traditional time for making lists of stuff is upon us. So rather than a list of my top ten albums, pieces of jewellery or political pratfalls of 2017 (although I’m not ruling that out if list mania grips me next week) I’m looking back at what I have learnt from my immersion in music, both as listener and bass player this year. Lessons Learnt From Music…
Nobody wants to fail, am I right? That hideous feeling you get when something you are trying to create starts to crumble, come apart at the seams and collapse on you. That awful moment when you feel powerless to stop it from happening. A mass of hard work goes south, and you feel like you’ve just wasted a part of your life with nothing to show for it. What if you invited that chaos into…
I’m standing at the edge of a stage, to my left is Steve Lawson one of the most renown solo-bassists in the UK if not the world. He is in his self-described “Happy Place” he is a musician, a performer. He is calmly making a few pre-flight checks on his equipment. I am not a performer. I am a maker, a jewellery designer. What am I doing here? I am also synaesthetic and am about…
Room 50 at the British Museum is full of treasure. It’s where the European Iron Age Celtic treasure hordes are displayed and where you will make an extraordinary connection with the humans who lived so long ago. There’s something about treasure, it has a real magic to it. You know what I mean, a really fascinating allure and it’s not just about all that gold and silver. Although our valuing of those precious metals over…
I was a huge Cure fan back in the late ’80s, big black and white poster of Robert Smith on my bedroom wall, had all their albums but never went to see them live. The closest I got was going round a friends house to watch “The Cure in Orange” on video. Then 1992 and the Manic Street Preachers happened and stole me away from The Cure. Not much other than occasional listening until my…
