fine ounce goldsmith collective: Jubi: If blogging is the new jogging, then skulls are the new hearts...

Being new to blogging is like being new to jogging; you need to do it a few times to get fit. The word “blog” sound a bit like “block” to me. I’m familiar with blocks: Lego block, writers block and often creative block.
We live in a world where we get bombarded by visual information. It is extremely difficult to come up with anything original and new. Sometimes you think your idea is original, even genius, and if you don’t act on it immediately, someone else is bound to pluck your thought from the tree of the collective unconscious and end up somewhere on Google, with your idea...

Damien Hirst's 2007 Platinum and diamond encrusted life size skull, worth a whopping $98M

On the jewellery design front, skulls are huge. It has been around for centuries, but started re-emerging around 2007, the time Damien Hirst made his life size, diamond encrusted skull worth a cool $98M. This trend has reached a tipping point and we are starting to see it everywhere. Is this a morbid fascination with death or maybe it’s a sign of the times? Is it the bleak, hopeless psyche of the world due to the economic climate or the end of it all as the Mayan calendar has predicted? Symbolically it could symbolise the end of an era of excessive consumerism. The world needs to take stock and learn to get by with less.
Skulls can also be a tongue in the cheek symbol (or that’s how I would like to see it). Skulls are fun... “skulls are the new hearts” (Anita Read).

It's pink and plastic and pop

"Skull and Bones cufflinks" made with silver and Magnetite skull beads. (Adeline Joubert)

Skull themed jewellery could also be inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead or tattoos or even Pirates of the Caribbean. You get pink plastic pop versions and ugly satanic biker versions, needless to say, it is everywhere and some of it ain’t pretty.

Another old favourite that is re-emerging are flower themed jewellery (not like it ever went away...) But we have had so many requests and orders for flower rings in the past 2 months.
Then there are the Birds… birds are everywhere, we are up to our ears (pun intended) in laser cut birds. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Ornithology, I have made many bird themed jewellery pieces in the past and regularly wear some feathered friends in my ears. But I hope that this year at Design Indaba, we will see more original designs than the same old cut out birds. It is fine if bird themed jewellery is flooding the market, but a show like Design Indaba should be about originality and setting new design frontiers.

Now I better go and practice what I preach and look for inspiration and "really deep thoughts" amongst the Lego blocks.