All posts by Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.
Heat Exchange 2

A new beginning

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Heat Exchange 2

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An exhibition curated by ElizabethTurrell and Beate Gegenwart

Heat Exchange 2 brings new artists into the project, to connect with
artists who participated in the first exhibition in May 2012.

Look forward to more engaging posts and lively discussion from these dedicated and passionate makers in 2014 and 2015. To see the new roster in its complete form check out The Artists page.

Our exhibition schedule so far is:

Craft in the Bay, Cardiff, UK from 11th of September 2015 until the 8th November 2015

Kulturhaus Kroenbacken, Erfurt, Germany in 2016 from 19th March 2016 until the 1st May 2016.

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

Heat Exchange 1, United States

Heat Exchange Installation

Finally!  Here are some images of the Heat Exchange works installed. All pictures were taken at the Shemer Museum and Arts Center in Scottsdale, AZ in the USA. Enjoy!

 

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

Heat Exchange 1

Post SNAG 2012 – Heat Exchange on the airwaves

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The Heat Exchange exhibition was staged as a part of the SNAG conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. During the conference, local artist and podcaster Jay Whaley broadcast his MetalSmith BenchTalk radio interview program from a spot inside the conference venue. Amongst a stellar lineup of guests somehow I got the nod to have a chat with Jay and Greg, so starting about half an hour from the end you can have a listen to me speaking about the Heat Exchange show, amongst other things. (Ignore the listing, I somehow ended up just after Loring.)

Check it out!

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

United States

We’re open!

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Last week we installed and opened the Heat Exchange exhibition. Below are some images from the opening at the Shemer Art Gallery and Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona.

View from the Shemer grounds

 

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

Heat Exchange 1

You’re invited!

If you’re in Arizona next week, please come along to our exhibition opening:

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

Heat Exchange 1

Two desk system

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On the jewellery bench - this object needs a trim

There was the jewellery bench and the enamel desk in my St Kilda studio. At any time there could be a pile of metal on the enamel bench ready to go, as well as (and fed directly from this pile) a stack of enamelled segments on the jewellery bench, awaiting stringing into a single piece. By the end of my progress in making works for this exhibition, enameling and making days would alternate, which allowed my studio to cool down between firing days. It also meant that I would have to concentrate hard and think creatively on enamelling days, while on making days more dexterity, but less imagination, was needed to complete the pieces. By this point, the tethering points and fixing methods I was planning to use had been decided, just the work of ordering and joining remained.

Productive clutter on the enamelling desk
Liquid enamel, a drying piece and to the right, a container holding glass bead sandblast medium
The previous piece, fired once, with marker attaching glass sandblast beads
Freshly fired
And onto the jewellery bench, ready for the next phase

 

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

Heat Exchange 1

another brooch

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So back here I was waxing lyrical about the parts I was enamelling to put together a bunch of brooches. The image below was taken shortly after the image in that post, and shows the three inserts that I didn’t show before, mid way through enamelling. On the left-hand-side it also shows the centre piece of the work Blue Radical Axis, with the shot taken after applying a clear coat over the graphite, and before adding colour.

The three pieces on the right have each had a clear coat of liquid enamel, and then two layers of linework applied, layer by layer. The lines, first drawn in pen, have been covered in sandblasting grit with the remainder of the grit shaken off, so that just the slim slivers remain, which are then fired on (a technique borrowed from Elizabeth). Now, I say grit, but these are actually Ballotini glass spheres, of a very tiny size, that I would normally use to get a bright (almost polished looking) surface on metal in my sandblaster. They impart more of a texture than a colour, as they fire pretty clear.

Inserts for two brooches. Stainless steel, enamel, graphite, Ballotini spheres

The final layers of enamel on this piece, which happened after this photo, were lines again drawn (3 lines in different directions, to represent x, y and z axes) but this time covered in regular white enamel, so that the topmost layer would have the most effect. Finally, the one representing ‘z’ received a thin coat of red.

xyz brooch. Melissa Cameron, 2012.

 

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

Heat Exchange 1

brooches realised

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I’ve finally got those images that I promised in my last post.

This is those same pieces of metal from the last photo, but enamelled! (Well, most of them, the insets of the big brooch at the top are m.i.a. since they weren’t enamelled yet.) This being a progress shot, none of the pieces are finished, as the white ones were all primed with a mix of clear + porcelain slip for some drawing action.

If you look close (or click on the image for the bigger version), you’ll also notice that the red piece is pinging at the holes. To remedy this I had to water everything down, doing a much thinner layer of clear, and two very thin coats of red. This time it’s totally stable, but beautifully shiny too!

To clarify, these pieces are all definitely stainless steel (excuse my mixup in the comments of the last post), with 925 silver fixings soldered with IT solder onto the backs, so are enamelled on one side only.

I’ve finished two of these pieces, while the third was a bit more tricky, but is now enamelled and awaiting assembly. That was the one that pinged the red layers. The centrepiece of that brooch (top left) didn’t appreciate the level of layering around those eight little holes, so rather than drawing in graphite, which involved two layers of enamel below and above it, I used a scraffito technique through an unfired layer of white as it required fewer. If I was a better enamellist I’m sure the graphite would have worked fine…

I have also finished a neckpiece that has an enamelled centrepiece, but more on that later. Here’s what the bottom right pieces look like assembled.

Melissa Cameron, Blue Radical Axis 2012. 65mm x 33mm x 10mm

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

Heat Exchange 1

Brooches in waiting

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Three stainless steel brooches, with fixings already soldered to the backs, sandblasted and awaiting their appointment with the enamel brush. I started enamelling on them on Thursday. (What a tease, I know, but more images of where they’re now at are coming.)

By the way, those of you who work with steel, is the blackening that appears on the un-enamelled parts relatively stable? I’m contemplating leaving some expanses of this untouched. Over the sandblasted steel it’s quite an appealing matte charcoal colour.

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.