Project: Scavenger

(This is a guest post by Della. Della is a student at the University of Cumbria, taking FdA contemporay jewellry year 1)

For one of my courses at the University of Cumbria, we were given a brief to research jewellers who work with sustainable or recycled materials, collect information and make a presentation on how ethical and sustainable the current jewellery industry is.

We also had to design and make a range of jewellery from recycled/re-found materials and objects. This became a bit of an obsession for me personally since Christmas. The more I delved in to it the more fascinated I became with all aspects of it. There is so much going on around the world in all areas of life working for the environment in many different ways.

After experimentation with many different materials I decided to use old acetate sheets for my project. It came from a shot blast cabinet and was used as a guard to protect the window. It looks quite innocuous, a transparent, flexible sheet. However when trying to burn it, it is quite toxic and produces black smoke. It would be a major problem for years, biodegrading over hundreds of years.

This was the catalyst for me, to make it in to something far more attractive.

The designs were relatively simple. I made some templates and cut the acetate in to different designs, a pendant, a brooch, a bangle, ring and earrings. The original designs were based on clothing, a collar, cuffs and a pocket. The collar didn’t work but the cuffs and pockets were great and I added a ring, earrings and a brooch.

I fastened the pieces together with rivets which I made from using scrap pieces of silver. I printed some designs on the pieces of jewellery to give them more interest.

One range is called Hazardous with a skull and cross bone image which emphasises the hazardous nature
of the material if discarded incorrectly. Another range is called Identity which plays on bar codes merging into finger prints, carrying all that information about us, turning us into products.

I then did a floral range for light relief!

A major result from this project has been finding a source of recycled metals in this country. A company called CredSources supplies 100% recycled silver and gold which I now use in all my new work.

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