PlatAfrica 2019 Finalist

I recently learned that I am a finalist (top 10) for the annual Anglo American Platinum competition known as PlatAfrica. The finals will be taking place on the 23rd of October in Sandton where the winners, second place winners and runners up will be announced. I was very fortunate to be a winner in the student and apprentice category in 2017, lets hope that I will be just as lucky in 2019. I have decided that I want to make myself a pair of earrings to wear for this evening as it will be the 'cherry on the cake' for me to be able to wear one of my own Btech pieces for such a lavish event.

Each student entrant was given 20 grams of platinum to work with to create a jewellery piece according to the theme: Love Has gone Platinum. I decided to use gooseberries as the main motifs in the brooch piece because:

1. I was challenged to create a jewellery piece for a specific hypothetical target audience. I decided to create a brooch that represents the traditional 4 year wedding anniversary gift of fruits and flowers, for my hypothetical couple, where the husband was looking to gift his wife with something special for their fourth wedding anniversary.

2. I based my design on a spray brooch as spray brooches were popular in the Victorian era, where husbands gifted their wives with beautiful spray brooches, which are brooches made from precious stones and metal to look like freshly picked floral branches or boquets of flowers. These bropoches  became symbols of 'everlasting love' as these brooches are undying sprays compared to freshly picked sprays off of plants that wilt and die within a few days. 

3. on a more personal level, I chose gooseberries because of the very special encounter I had with a gooseberry plant. Also, the three gooseberries (two small closed ones and one magnificent open one presenting a pearl) represent communication , a lacking aspect in my personality that I have been working on. The gooseberries represent the 'bliss' in a relationship that is experienced once two people are able to communicate efficiently as opposed to bottling up negative emotions. Communication allows a relationship to grow and 'bloom'.  Communication is a key aspect in any relationship, platonic or romantic.

I will post a picture in this blog as soon as Anglo American has released all of the images of the finalists' jewellery.