Thursday, August 21, 2014

The Coral Collection and 14 karat

Ring from the Coral Collection, sterling silver
This year the Goldsmiths Guild of Copenhagen celebrates its 585 years anniversary and what would be more appropriate than to honor great craftsmanship with a little competition.

The winner of the competition will be announced tomorrow at 16.00 so please cross your fingers for me as I'm up against very talented and skilled goldsmiths and designers.

Here's a little more about the contest and my designs:
585 is the hallmark for 14 karat gold, a gold alloy that holds 58,5% gold, and the brief for the competition was to create a 14 karat gold ring, no heavier than 5 grams, with a 0.05ct diamond set in it. The ring could then be backed up by a series of rings with a more artistic feel.

So the silversmith (me) started working; and from this sprung a series of rings in gold and silver sprinkled with a bit of diamonds, sapphires and pearls with a soft and organic feel.

The collection takes it starting point in the structures of traditional diamond jewellery which is often a bit too rigorous and edgy for my taste. My solitaire ring is straightforward; the setting for the stone is organic and rounded and the ring shank has been given extra weight at the bottom, so it sits light and elegant on the finger, but does not seem stingy.

The next rings (unfortunately not photographed yet) copies the structures of classical 5- and 7-setting rings, but an asymmetrical and random placing of the settings gives the rings a lively and organic expression. And then in the next generation of the rings the settings has had their own life and grown wild, just as some lush undersea vegetation.

After handing in my work for the competition in February I have continued working with the little organic settings with or without stones and have had a great response to the pieces. They can be seen and tried on in the shop over the next months.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Kisses of silver

Meringue box, Sterling silver, Lone Løvschal, photo: Iben Bølling Kaufmann
 A few years ago i made this little silver box for an exhibition on Bornholm (one of my favorite places in the world). The title of the exhibition was 'Lækkerier' ('Sweeties') and I found it intriguing to work with the delicious shape of a meringue; making a box that would protect your meringue, should you bring it with you in your pack lunch.
The shape is a complex juxtaposition of curves that comes naturally when extruding the egg/sugar-fluff with a piping bag. Unfortunately I wasn't able to use that technique when baking a fine silver meringue; but, with the help of a press tool I made up for the purpose and a lot of hammering and fitting, I succeeded. The result being a very beautyfull yet rather expensive piece of silver, as it took quite some time to make.

One of my aims when joining the Royal College of Art was to look into methods of production which would make batch production more accessible in smaller companies such as my own. I still find it intriguing to find ways of producing more of the same without loosing exclusivity and finish. (I might have inherited my fathers 'this-could-be-made-easier'-gene; more on that subject some other time)

Back to the Kiss; in Danish we call this meringue a 'kiss-cake'.
I was overwhelmed with the attention this little piece of silver got and it spurred me on to work on a less expensive version, that would make it possible for more people to bring their meringue unharmed to work every day, or simply add some more beauty to our world.
Meringue box, Sterling silver, Lone Løvschal, photo: James Bates
And now it's here......more crisp than the one-off, however just as mouthwatering. Still with a lot of time spend on the finish and never a mass produced product, but affordable and ready to eat.