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. 

Plat Africa (Gold Plating)

After I completed my Pods, I was ready to see what it would look like with the large open pod containing the pearl.  The pearl is not a bright white pearl, it is more off white and I wanted to see if it had a reaction to the colours that would be reflected on the inside of the shiny surface of the pod. I placed the pearl into the pod and compared it to an image of the pod without a pearl. There was a large difference:
The image showing the inside of the pod containing the pearl almost has a dull brown or beige sheen to it where the image of the pod containing no pearl has a whiter sheen. The pearl definitely has an affect of the sheen on the inside of the pearl

Pod containing pearl appears dull

Pod with no pearl has a white sheen

To combat this dull sheen, I gold plated the inside of the pod to accommodate the warm tones. I had to cover the outside of the pod with nail varnish to act as a resist when the pod was placed into the gold plating bath so that the outside surface remains unaffected.

Result after gold plating

PlatAfrica Free Writing

This was the third year that I had the opportunity to work with platinum and each year I end up loving the process. At first it is always daunting working with platinum because its physical properties are vastly different to those of silver or copper it is much harder than other metals making it difficult to bend and polish as it requires sanding in much higher grades than silver and gold. . It is also much more valuable  and one always has to be extra cautious not to lose  scraps, bits and filings as your loss cannot be greater than 5% of the total metal weight. Because platinum having such a high melting point, It is also very difficult to remelt the metal so you cannot afford to have wrong calculations regarding the metal preparation.  Because of these two factors, a jeweller learns to respect this metal.  

Apart from these fearsome properties, platinum also has many amazing properties that the other metals do not have. I used these properties to my advantage in the creation of my PlatAfrica 2019 Brooch. Platinum has the ability to fuse, which helped me to create a strong branch without having any solder joints to weaken the structure. The twigs and branches were fully fused onto the main branch to create one solid brooch. Platinum also stays shiny after being exposed to heat and this property saved me quite a few steps in the polishing process, I was able to pre-polish each part and assemble each shiny part individually. Platinum's great strength also allowed me to make a brooch pin that does not lose it's tension and I could roll my sheet metal paper thin so that I could cut out my templates using a regular pair of scissors. No filings. 

Regular scissors being used to cut out templates on a 0.15mm sheet

It felt very wrong to use a pair of scissors to cut out my templates, it also felt terrible to roll-mill the surface of the platinum as opposed to having a shiny polished surface, It felt like I was disrespecting Platinum, Almost like wearing takkies to go and see the queen. I also realize that the stereotype in my mind and in the minds of others, must be broken. Platinum or Gold is mostly associated with Shiny BLING BLING, no It does not necessarily have to shine, as I am making contemporary jewellery, I can use contemporary methods in my creation to break away from the norm. 

PlatAfrica 2019 Manufacturing (Texture)

This post covers the section of texture that was used for my PlatAfrica 2019 Piece

 Above is the texture that was used in my silver prototype This texture was achieved in two parts, first the sheet metal of  0.15mm was roll milled with 800 sandpaper before piercing out the flower shaped template. After the pod was formed and bent, a hot flame was used to reticulate the surface to appear more organic (this is not possible to go on copper or platinum)

 The Above texture was used on the platinum version. after the star template was cut out of a sheet of platinum 0.15mm thick,  the pod was brilliantly polished to create a shiny surface and then a sharp scribe was used to draw on cells onto the surface of the pod. Thereafter the pod was punched and bent to shape. The shiny pods created a brilliant contrast against the more dull twigs and leaves.

The above texture was used on the leaves of my gooseberry pod leaves. First the leaves were hand drawn onto a sheet of platinum (0.15mm thick) in shapes of  hearts. These hearts were cut out with scissors then roll milled with 80 sand paper to give this rough texture and to elongate the leaves. They were then punched on a leather pad using a rounded flat punch to create the skeleton of the leaves.

Personal Meaning of PlatAfrica 2019 Piece

On a personal level, I decided to use the Gooseberry as my source of inspiration because over the past few weeks, gooseberry pods have become a sort of metaphor of my thoughts and feelings. I have noticed that I tend to hide my emotions away in fear of peoples' reactions or hurting their feelings. I have started working on this problem by making a point of sharing my inner feelings and thoughts to others. Sometimes it helps to share a good thought and it is an important skill to have in personal relationships.

On my final design, I have placed three platinum pods ascending from small to large, with the large one that is open exposing a magnificent pearl and a gold plated inside. The three closed pods represent my mind or my thoughts that are concealed to the world and the three different sized pods represent me as a person (growing). The large pod containing the pearl represent the expression of my emotions, feelings or thoughts. When viewing one of my previous posts, titled Holiday Jewellery,  I give a meaning to the use of pearls:"The pearl represents suffering, as a pearl is grown inside an oyster’s flesh. It starts off as a piece of sand or debris that the oyster coats in nacre to smooth out the grain’s sharp and painful edges."  The pod exposing the pearl represents my release of suffering or internal debate experienced when emotions or feelings are kept inside. The gold plating brings with a sense of warmth , joy or relief that is experienced when the internal turmoil is expelled. 

PlatAfrica 2019

For this year's theme, Love in Platinum, I decided to go with the design hook of Rhapsodies of Nature. I created a stunning spray brooch made entirely out of platinum which was inspired by a photograph of a gooseberry twig that I hung upside down to dry. My brooch is representational to a gooseberry twig with three platinum gooseberry pods hanging from it. Each of the pod twigs are able to rotate and move with the body of the wearer. The three gooseberries are arranged in descending sizes, the two smaller gooseberry pods are closed up and the largest one is slightly open with a large pearl on the inside. the inside of this pod was gold plated to give a hint to the gooseberry's golden yellow colour.

Inspirational Image behind my final design

I decided to make a gooseberry twig brooch, not only does the gooseberry have a very personal meaning in my life, but also because it fit the theme of this year's competition. We were tasked to create a customer profile for the imaginary person purchasing this item. I created a profile of a young man looking to purchase the perfect gift for his wife on their fourth wedding anniversary, which traditionally, flowers or fruit are gifted on this year, making this fruitful piece a very fitting gift.

Final Plat Africa Brooch Design in Platinum, with gold plating and Pearl

Plat Africa 2

Plat Africa

The theme for the Plat Africa 2019 competition is “love in Platinum”, I will be creating a spray brooch resembling a gooseberry twig in sterling silver carrying three gooseberry pods made from platinum. The reason that I have chosen to make a spray brooch is because of their meaning when given to someone. A spray brooch is a brooch made out of gold or platinum to look like twigs or a bunch of flowers. When someone receives a spray brooch, it is like receiving an everlasting bunch of flowers, a metaphor to undying love as platinum does not tarnish. I have chosen to use Gooseberry pods as the pods resemble the concealment of thoughts or emotions. The three pods in platinum, growing in size, and the largest one broken open to reveal a pearl resembles the expression of thought. The use of platinum represents the strength of these barriers. I have chosen to use a pearl in place of a gooseberry because pearls are a symbol of suffering; they are formed by a grievance in the flesh of oysters. The pod releasing the pearl shows the release of grievance which allows the relationship to grow.

Platinum Prototype Two

Texture

I have been experimenting with using sandpaper to create a texture on the surface of leaves. In my previous prototype I used P80 for the leaves and the second P800. I must say that I definitely prefer the texture created by the P80 sandpaper as it lets the leaves appear more hairy. I tried roll milling the wire of the stem with P80 sandpaper in the wire section of the roller to create a texture on the surface but this did not work as well as expected as the piece of wire still came out looking square opposed to rounded as I imagined. I ended up engraving lines on the stem to create a more natural surface. I also discovered a technique to roll out the wire for my stems to make the wire go from thick to thin; this involves rolling the wire up to a marked line and not exceeding that point allowing the wire to have staggered thick to thin areas resembling a branch. The best way pierce out natural looking leaves is to cut them out using tin snips as this allows the ends of the leaves to curl down in a more natural way.

Leaves

staggered thicknesses thin to thick

P80 texture on wire, not even noticeable 

Movement

Movement

For the past few weeks I have been inspired by the concept I developed for the PlatAfrica 2018 Competition and I have been working on ways to incorporate movement into my work. The Ring that I designed for the competition consisted of many simple petals that were looped through half jump rings connected to the surface of the ring, this allowed each petal to move freely with the movement of the wearer’s hand. Movement, development or growth can be metaphorically expressed through nature or something organic.  Picture leaves quivering in the wind, a sped up clip of a seed germinating or a dead animal decaying in the field. These three images express movement, development and growth.

The most important concept that I have been working on recently is movement. I have been developing a way or technique to involve movement into my jewellery pieces and this concept was developed from my plat Africa piece. During this project, I developed a technique of incorporating movement into my jewellery pieces but I felt that the technique that I was following was not perfect so I continued to develop my ideas. This led me to come up with the idea of concealing the hinge system (the previous system involved a visible jump ring that acted as a hinge) so I came up with the idea of sliding each petal through a thin slit cut out onto a surface and creating a stop from behind so that it is not visible. Below is a close up picture of my slit system. I cut out multiple petals out of silver and I cut multiple slits into a domed surface and combined these petals in a random pattern.

Having completed my first prototype, I now have a clearer understanding of my new concept and how I can improve on it. Overall I can see that this concept has beautiful movement and the potential to be taken further, however I must definitely work on my petal arrangement and the length of the slits to create a neater finished piece. The arrangement that I chose did not look visually appealing because petals were pointing in many different directions and all were different sizes, I will stick to using the same size petal in future. The next step for me is to produce more prototypes to refine the process further.