PINZ designs ordered

Today I have ordered some small rubber stamps to be made, of my kiwiana designs that were first created for the Fashions Clips I was making previously. I will use these for creating the Souvenir PINZ. While I am waiting for these rubber stamps to arrive, I am busy making some Skinner Blend PINZ with circular designs to match the sculptural wall-hanging, Colour Play, I have just completed for the Members and Students Exhibition at Mairangi Art Centre. The hand in date is this Friday (18 July), although the exhibition does not run until 23 July – 16 August 2014. I hope the gallery will add some of these PINZ to my pendants and fashion clips that are in their sale cabinets during this exhibition.

PINZ by Claire

For a while I have been thinking about reworking the Art-Brooches I made a few years ago but presenting them in a more modern way and calling them PINZ. They would be small wearable pieces of sculptural art, which I enjoy making, and it is a way to share my creativity with a wider audience, as people more readily buy jewellery and fashion accessories than a larger work of art or sculpture. I could almost create mini versions, to sell in gallery stores, where I have larger sculptural artworks on exhibition.

 

I think of ‘pin’ as the American term for ‘brooch’, however, the English Oxford Dictionary defines pin (in this sense) as a ‘small brooch or badge’, giving reference to a lapel pin. A pin sounds less old fashioned than a brooch and also means I can spell it with the ‘NZ’ ending, reinforcing that they are made in New Zealand. Back in November last year, when the idea came to me for making souvenir pins for tourists that were actually made in New Zealand, I was thinking of calling them ‘NZ-PINZ’ but have recently settled on ‘PINZ by Claire’. It is short and descriptive, encompassing the important facts: New Zealand made pins by me (not mass produced in a factory in China).

 

A clutch pin is easier for the wearer to fasten on clothing and only pierces with one hole, compared to the traditional bar pin brooch finding. Using the clutch pin fastening also means I can make them quite small and, due to the light weight of polymer clay, it is also possible to create pins of a larger size than the norm for a lapel type pin. This gives flexibility for creating various pin designs, especially as the design does not have to fit round hiding the bar pin finding.

 

I am aware that many people still prefer to wear a pendant rather than a pin/brooch, so I will include a free ‘PINZ Converter’ with each large pin sold. The pin can be fastened to the converter, which has a tube at the top to thread a chain or cord through, enabling it to be worn as a pendant. For the smaller pins, I am thinking of a surround mounting, in different colours, onto which the pin can be fastened and a chain or cord threaded through - these will be offered as an optional extra.

 

I am currently working on various designs and hope to have my first PINZ available for public reaction at the Labour Day Art & Craft Market at Mission Bay on Monday 27 October 2014. I will then seek suitable places through which to sell my PINZ, as well as trying online through www.felt.co.nz and possibly www.etsy.com.

The HANGA

The HANGA prototype

For some time I have been toying with the idea of designing brooches that you can hang your reading glasses from. In fact, also sun glasses, identity badges and anything else that my come to mind (maybe charms or ipod ear pieces?). My original idea was to incorporate a hanging ring into the brooch design but so far I have been unable to source any suitable solid metal (rather than plated) rings here in New Zealand. The only suitable ones I have found, from America, are not viable due to the excessive postage costs.

Keen to try out the idea, as feedback from initial discussions with several people has been very positive, I made my first prototype last month (around 15 August) purely from polymer clay. I have road tested it as a brooch, for both functionality and feedback, at the last few events that I have done. The comments have been encouraging and I have already had a couple of potential orders, so I intend to make some for this years Christmas markets. It seems quite strong and durable just being made from polymer clay – and most importantly, it works. I have used my only pair of reading glasses and they have not fallen off!

Several people have said that they do not wear brooches but would love one as a pendant, so I was considering making some of each. I want to have a wide range of colours and designs but it is inevitable that I will not have the right one available in the brooch or pendant form. Then I remembered having seen and managed to track down a 2 in 1 finding – it is a brooch pin with a bail soldered on. This means I only have to make one type. I have ordered some of these findings to try out (from Australia) and am keeping my fingers crossed that they arrive in time for me to complete the pieces I have started for the forthcoming markets.

I have spent the last few days trying to think of a name for this ‘brooch/pendant to hang your reading glasses, sun glasses or identity badge from’. Every name Colin and I came up with already existed, as some other object. The only name that did not, was the very first one I thought of – HANGA. I thought of this because it is a brooch/pendant on which you can ‘hang a’ pair of glasses, badge or other item. The name is short and catchy but not too tacky.

Also, co-incidentally, when I looked in the The Reed Dictionary of Modern Maori at work, 'hanga' can be translated as 'build, create, transform, make, compose, construct, generate, shape'. I may need to seek further clarification of this but it is better than 'hango' which is 'shovel'. Whilst an appropriate Maori translation is not essential, as I am making these in New Zealand, an affinity would be good. [I will post some more definitions of 'hanga', when I have completed my research].

So it looks like the Hanga Brooch/Pendant will be the name for my latest creation.

A Review of July 2010

The main focus of this month has been to get stock ready for my first time at Coatesville Market, which means I have not created many new Art-Brooch designs on canvases. I have tried to finish off pieces that had previously been started, especially making some of my experimental pieces into brooches and also trying out the idea of making sample brooches – both of these will be lower cost items for my stand.

Trial set-up of table display

I have also been working on a new set-up for my table. Unfortunately, I ran out of time, so I only have three screens (instead of five) as shown in the photograph above. It looks over-crowded to me but when I get the other two screens, I can space things out more. I have designed the screens to join together with Velcro strips but I am not sure how secure this will be in practice. At least I can try it out tomorrow and then reconsider the fixing method, if necessary, before adding the other two screens.

Trial new brooch designs

I had a mega session on Saturday, creating the new designs I sketched out the other day. I decided to make one of each of the eight designs, using the same coloured 'focal' piece for them all. For this I made a sheet of mokume gane, using purple, turquoise, green, pearl and translucent polymer clay and some silver metal leaf.  I was really pleased with the way the mokume gane turned out and it was great fun to make.

These are just the faces of the brooches, they will need the backs finishing - and judging by the results of my voting poll so far, I will be using locking pins. As I have made these brooches smaller, I will need to get some smaller pin fastenings (I have a new recommended source from America) but hopefully I will be able to get these completed to take to Coatesville. Although they are more fiddly to make smaller, the brooches look more delicate - and I think more 'valuable'.

Today I decided I had really better concentrate on getting my new screens and certain important things finished for the Coatsville Market. I have also started to paint a few more canvases for a few of my 'in progress' brooches, such as the one below which I think will be called 'Golden Mask'.

I recently bought some templates and included in the pack were four rubber stamps. I wanted to try out this one of the face. It is not the sort of thing I would normally buy (in fact I want to design my own rubber stamps) but I think it looks quite effective. I stamped it on to some striped polymer clay that I had left and layered it over gold metal leaf and gold Premo Sculpey.