Visit Dundas, see one of my pieces in person!

I’m so excited to share with you that one of my pieces will be on view at the Carnegie Gallery in Dundas in October!

You might remember my “Spillage” ring that I shared a while ago. I like to apply for juried exhibitions, especially other places. I’m always eager to share my work, and it’s always an honour to me to be accepted. The Carnegie Gallery only does an open juried exhibition once every two years, and this year, I put forward two pieces, and they accepted my “Spillage” ring for this year’s exhibition. Yay!

The exhibition runs from October 6th - November 5th 2023. The opening reception is October 6th, hope to see you there, and keep your fingers crossed that I win an award !

New Retail Outlet!!

I’m very pleased to announce that you can see my work (in person!) at the Craft Ontario Shop on Queen Street West.

If you don’t know about Craft Ontario, they’re a not-for-profit organisation that supports craft across Ontario. Part of this is through the Craft Ontario Shop. They are fantastic promoter of professional craft, and it’s a bit of a milestone for me, as an artist, to have them take my work for sale. If you haven’t been there before, they have a fantastic selection of quality craft work that is definitely worth seeing (if not buying :). They also always have an exhibition in the back half of the shop space, which is also always worth seeing (and free!).

This is just one of the pieces by me that you’ll find in the Craft Ontario shop! I call them my Misfits of Science pearl ring. With its classic pearl, and whimsical cup, it’s a great stacking ring that will stand out.

Art, Science and a day out this Saturday at Science Rendezvous

The weather seems to be perking up, and so is the exhibition/event season. I’m excited to be able to participatein the SciArt Gallery as part of Science Rendezvous this coming Saturday, May 13th, 2023, 11am - 5pm . Come out to see my jewellery in person, hear more about why and how I do my art, and see some new work that I will be unveiling in person.

Science Rendezvous:

·        Is FREE

·        Is an annual, all-day festival

·        Brings science out of the lab, onto the street

·        Encourages public involvement in STEAM (science, technology, engineering art and mathematics)

·        Involves U of T departments, local organisations and community

·        Engages interest, and encourages hands-on experiments

Hope you make it out on Saturday! Stop by to see me, in the Sydney Smith building at the University of Toronto St. George campus, and say hello!

Treat yourself with this special opportunity

I’d like to tell you a short-ish story about a colleague and his family, as well as the opportunity to buy jewellery and help a family in need at the same time!

My colleague at Jewel Envy, Shafiq Sarwari, is a talented, kind, and hardworking goldsmith and lapidarist (he cuts and polishes stones) who came to Canada in 2016, escaping the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Now Shafiq’s family is in peril. After their actions as collaborators with the US armed forces during their residence in Afghanistan, they had to flee to Pakistan, leaving everything behind in order to survive. Currently, they are refugees in Pakistan, but can’t stay there indefinitely.

Including parents, siblings and nieces/nephews, there are seven adults and five children who are being sponsored to come to Canada.  The adults are all highly educated, and eager to contribute to life in Canada, but the financial requirements for them to come through the government refugee sponsorship program are pretty hefty.  There is a Group of Five who have committed to sponsoring this special family group, with a goal of raising $120 000 to support them through their first year in Canada.

As a group, I and my colleagues (past and present) at Jewel Envy are doing a fundraising event to support our valued colleague.  This is an online auction for jewellery that is open now, until early June.

Although the goldsmiths have been given the opportunity to receive part of the payment for any of their individual pieces sold, I have elected to donate my pieces in their entirety. The great thing about the auction is that there is such a range of prices and styles, you’re sure to find something to suit you!

Amethyst and sterling silver necklace

Please help me support my amazing colleague, Shafiq, in making it possible for his family to start a new life free of fear and persecution by (either, or both!):

• Bidding generously on the auction items (it is also possible to donate through this platform. To save the processing fees charged by the platform, feel free to contact Jewel Envy- info@jewelevny.ca - to find out how to contribute directly to the sponsorship fund.)

• Please share the auction with your friends, family, and network. If everyone contributes just a fraction of what they can, we’ll reach our goal.

Citrine and sterling silver pendant on a snake chain

If you are interested in other events that are going to occur to support this special initiative, I’d love to hear from you!  Email, and let me know!

Breaking News.....

It’s almost the end of the week (although not so much for me!), and I thought I’d share a bit of news with you. If you were wondering more about me, and some of my jewellery processes, you can head over to a website called The Node. They have a regular feature on a SciArtist, and this month, they’re featuring me!

You can see the feature here. Happy reading!

Have a great weekend!

Estate ring re-made as stacking rings

I thought I’d written about the genesis of this one, but I see I didn’t! As you know, I have a habit of taking on “remodeling” projects. I thought I’d share another one I finished recently with you.

It started with this ring—my client acquired it from an estate sale (and believe me, they got a deal on it, compared to if they’d bought the diamonds and gold new).

It started with a concept, a “bamboo” band, and use all the diamonds. What resulted, as you’ll see, what something a bit different. First, it was two rings using all the diamonds.

See! Suddenly it’s two rings :)

Now it’s 3 rings! And different colour metals! (all 14kt gold)

And…here’s the 3 finished rings, in one of any number of combinations!

I removed the stones, and swapped the gold ring, plus a bunch of other old/broken gold that my client had, for new gold that I added to and re-alloyed to make the rose and yellow alloys for casting. The white gold ring is palladium white gold, so I ordered that grain pre-made. One of the diamonds was damaged, so we decided to replace it with this very attractive orange sapphire for an extra pop of colour. The small diamonds were also reclaimed from another ring. So, it was almost entirely a reclamation and re-use project. And my client LOVED the final products.

If you have something languishing in your jewellery box that you’d love to have re-done in something more contemporary that you can love, it would be great to talk to you! Reach out to me on the contact page and let’s talk!

Making a statement- Sapphire and Diamonds

I love remodeling old jewellery and reusing stones for clients to make something fresh and new that they love! These two rings are part of these efforts—I recycled some gold from the client, and used their diamonds/sapphires to make these two new, unique pieces in sterling silver.

I love the asymmetric look, and the chunky feel to them!

How about you? What’s your favourite style? Dig through that jewellery box and renew those pieces you used to love!

Make a statement-- How I helped to bring vision to reality in earring form

I love doing custom pieces. It can be so rewarding bringing something new to life in collaboration with a client. I recently finished a spectacular pair of earrings. Some pieces are quick, and some are not so quick. These were the latter. This story starts about six months ago….. A lovely lady wandered into the studio with a fist full of stones removed from jewellery and a bunch of other jewellery that still needed to have the stones taken out of, and some quick sketches on a piece of paper. She had a clarity of vision that was spectacular! I did some sketches, and then we had a meeting. One of the first things she said to me was “I have big hair, I need big earrings”. Well, she got her wish!

The brief was for broken and run down wheels, incorporating as many stones as possible. These guys are massive- about 3.5 inches long! With some pretty big stones. The challenge was to incorporate lots of stones, but still keep them wearable. In the end, I suggested extending the wheels a bit, to incorporate a cluster of stones on a post, this allowed me to make them so that the stick and wheel units could be taken off the clusters, making the earrings more versatile. So, the client can wear the clusters as much as desired (because they’re a reasonable weight), and put on the dangling wheel on special occasions when she really wants that wow! factor.

Next, I prepped the waxes, and cast them (you can see them here with the stones placed. Each setting was done, and then I played a bit with the wax weight to try and keep the overall weight down. I didn’t worry so much about the finishing at this point, as I knew that I was going to have to modify them alot in the metal.

The stick units, ready for setting with their stones! I added posts and omega clips, as well as jump rings to the different units, and ate away at the metal to give it a distressed or aged look. Then it was time to have the stones set! Once that was done, I did some more work on eating away at the metal, and the oxidised them to give them an aged look. And voila! Finished earrings.

Mission Accomplished! These were so much fun to make, and the client was delighted with them. Diamonds and garnets and sapphires and topaz, oh my!

Do you have jewellery lurking in your box that you used to love, but don’t anymore? I can help you love it again! Drop me a line, let’s have a conversation.

St. Andrew's Society, and discount

Starting a business is always challenging, particularly when you return from away and are trying to get things up and running from a stand still. Four years ago, I returned to Toronto from the UK with the intention of establishing my artist practice in jewellery, and kiltmaking. I had a plan (because I can only split my attention so many ways at once!): I’d concentrate on getting one side set up, and then work on the other. Serendipity ended up dictating that jewellery got the lionshare of my attention first!

Fast forward to 2020, and the new year, which included plans to start trying to develop the kiltmaking aspect of my business more. Well, we all know what happened then…..and, like alot of people, I fell into abit of a covid black hole. Fast forward again, and here we are moving toward the end of 2022. Amongst the activities I’ve done this year, is to joing the St. Andrew’s Society of Toronto. Apart from conncecting with people of Scottish descent, they have a charitable aspect that I admire, and hope to become more involved with in the future.

In the meantime, I’m happy to announce that I am partnering with the St. Andrew’s Society of Toronto to offer it’s members a 10% discount off my products and services. Keep your ears up for exciting news about this in the next few weeks!

And….if you love all things Scottish, I recommend visiting the society’s website, as they have a pretty exciting calendar of social events! Hope to see you at some of them:).

-Robin

I got a grant!

As you may know, I used to be a research scientist. Part of my old career was writing grants for money to do research. Since I like to use all my skills (and it’s always nice to get the money and recognition that writing a successful grant brings!), I’ve turned my hand to start writing applications for grants, for exhibitions….for anything I think will bring me more exposure, and that I feel I will benefit from, really.

And…I’m pleased to say that I’ve received my first arts grant from the Ontario Arts Council! It’s a grant that supports (retrospectively) my participation in the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair (which I participated in person for the first time this year!).

So, what does this mean for me? Well, first of all, I’m grateful to receive support from the OAC. For an emerging artist (which I am), it’s a big deal to me. It’s some money to help me defray the cost of exhibiting (these shows can be pretty pricey, and when you’re new, you don’t necessarily sell much until people get to “know” you), which is great. And, hopefully, it will lead to other things! But we’ll see.

It also means that if you peruse the website, you should notice that I’ve added a new logo to the footer of the pages, indicating that I’ve received support from the OAC. This is important, to help publicise that the OAC is an active supporter of artists, and bring attention to it’s work from the general public. If you don’t know what they’re about, I encourage you to visit their website and explore this a bit!

In the meantime, I’m back to the salt mines!