2001 Statement
It is said that voyages of discovery often need not involve a journey but are dependent on discovering new ways of viewing the world you live or work in. My MPhil research into the application of computer aided design and manufacture, (CAD/CAM), technologies as new contemporary tools for making has certainly been instrumental in causing me to reflect on my craft practice and search for new perspectives.
The relationship between the 'hand and the eye' and the physical qualities of different media and tools have always been traditional key concern of our craft. Today the computer provides a way of viewing the world unique to the end of the last millennium and the start of the next. With these machines we can examine designs and forms of incredible complexity where scale, macro or micro, is no longer a concern. Digital tooling allows us to manipulate form where mass no longer exists and an individuals personal strength isn't a problem. The objects designed with these super tools can be sent over any distance digitally to be cut or manufactured remotely in an ever increasing range of materials, before being returned to the designer. Like the metaphorical voyage, they transcend from a digital virtual concepts to a physical real events.
I can not imagine a more challenging or exciting time for the artist/crafts person, or for the future of craft and design, than to see what can be made tomorrow with these tools of today.
Mphil by Project 1999-2000
Making New Jewellery with New Technology.
Making With New Technology - CAD/CAM and Contemporary Jewellery Craft Practice
The goldsmith Stephen Bottomley (b.1967) lives and works in Brighton. He divides his time between studio work, research, teaching and occasionally working with the jeweller Louis Mueller at Rhode Island School of Design in the US. His educational history is every bit as detailed as Stoyel’s. He originally studied three-dimensional design in metals at Surrey Institute of Art and Design, Farnham, and set up his first workshop in 1990. Feeling he needed specific jewellery skills, he took a programme in stone-setting, diamond-mounting and die-sinking at the Sir John Cass Institute (now Guildhall University), completed in 1992. Soon afterwards, he began teaching metalwork and jewellery at Hastings School of Art, an occupation which he continues to enjoy.
In 1996 Bottomley embarked on a part-time MA in design at the University of Brighton, studying computer-aided design under Chris Rose. Digital design research was entirely new to him, so he spent much of his time at the university simply absorbing the technology and discovering its potential for his craft. Only later could he return to the more familiar environment of the workshop to make his screen-based experiments work in metal.
The aspect of CAD of most interest to Bottomley today is the application of photo-etching to metals. He makes use of it as embellishment, or texture, and also for marking out templates for cutting and folding metal sheet. These textures, or low relief patterns, can be abstract or figurative, and are derived from computer drawings or Bottomley’s own photographs of subjects as varied as silk fabric, the landscape, water or the human face. These images are manipulated and selected, then translated into photo-tools, developed onto precious metal sheet and etched with chemicals.
Stephen Bottomley uses this technique for all his current jewellery, which is sold through galleries and exhibitions, here and abroad. In this exhibition are ‘ruff’ silver necklaces, light but large, and silver or red gold ‘frame brooches’ in which etched metal panels serving as photographs in a frame - can be interchanged by the wearer. His most recent designs, however, result from experiences during a short stay in America and feature transparent coloured enamels inlaid into etched silver, almost in the manner of cloisonné & The ‘Voyage Pendant’, commemorating a boat trip, and ‘Yo-yo of Fate’, a wearable toy, show how spirited design ideas (based on a photograph and a found object, respectively) can be usefully harnessed to certain modes of image-making and production using digital technology, to be further enhanced by skilled craftsmanship.
What emerges from an overview of the careers of Stephen Bottomley and Janet Stoyel is that working with new technology the crafts demands not only a structured, inquisitive approach but also a good working knowledge of materials, before ever switching on a computer. That is the way it has been up to now, but art and design education and studio practice are changing and over the next decade we should expect to see things re-configure in unexpected ways.
Margot Coatts, Applied Technology, Janet Stoyel & Stephen Bottomley,Craft
showcase 2 catalogue, The Foyer gallery, Surrey Institute of Art & Design.
October 1999