Celebrating PIN

PIN - site

PIN is the Portuguese Association of Contemporary Jewellery. It was created in 2004 and through its first decade it has contibuted to the development and spreading of contemporary jewellery.

One of the several projects promoted by PIN is the anual planner, which is now on its fourth edition and its main goal is to share PIN member's jewellery works with a broader audience.
As PIN is celebrating its 10th birthday on September 2014, the fourth edition of this publication (Agenda Dois Mil e Catorze) is the first project to mark the date. It gathers more than 40 pictures of members' interpretations of the proposed theme Celebração (Celebration). Some pieces offer a more personal perspective, other pieces are more directly related to the 10th birthday celebration of PIN.

Renata Porto | Oferenda, 2013 | Object | Photo credits: Stefan Patay

As a member of PIN, and more recently part of the direction board, I've participated in this project, not only with a featured jewellery piece, but also as a member of the production team.
Although it was a hard task managing so many different sorts of information included on the anual planner production, it was a real pleasure to communicate with several jewellers and being an active part of all this!

Catarina Dias | Pedra Longa, 2013 | Ring | Photo credits: Pollyanna Freire

My piece featured on the planner is a colaborative work with Katja Tschimmel, who was my Masters tutor and invited me to intervene in a wood piece of hers that needed a jewellery detail to be complete.
Starting from her concept related to maternity, I made a copper element to be placed inside the wood piece.

So, the final result is Maternity Egg, a hand piece to be held and pressed on the moment of birth giving. The child's name and birth date can also be engraved on the copper stem, making it an inheritance jewel.

Katja Tschimmel + Aurea Praga | Maternity Egg, 2002 - 2013 | Hand piece    

Most of the pieces included on this edition of the anual planner are displayed in a gallery in Lisbon - Galeria Tereza Seabra - until the 4th October 2013. The opening was last Monday and it was particularly special for me, being among so many jewellery makers and jewellery lovers! (See more photos here and here and here).
I highly recommend a visit to this Celebration ehxibition!

PIN Members at the opening | Photo credits: Eduardo Sousa Ribeiro

Me, Katja and the Maternity Egg

Ó! for Awesome!

If you like illustration (is it possible not to like it?) you will love Ó! Galeria.
Ó! Galeria is an illustration gallery that gathers a massive collection of original work, prints, fanzines and other publications, tote bags, t-shirts and some curious objects from a lot of Portuguese illustrators (myself included) and some foreigners too.
If you come to Porto, here in Portugal, make sure to visit this place.
It's totally worth it!

At the time being, you can visit the summer collective exhibition - FEED ME! - that will be there until mid-September, so hurry up (don't worry that much, there's always something interesting happening in there).
For this summer exhibition, which revolves around recipes, my contribution was a colour pencil cracker sandwich to place on yourself.
It's called "My eatable self".

In the meantime, make sure to check out the auction that is taking place on Ó! Galeria facebook page tomorrow, the 30th August.
The piece being auctioned is one of my original illustrations from the "Grief" series (I'll be posting about this series one of these days).

And, by the way, don't forget to also check on the giveaway I'm promoting - A foxy gift!
You can still enter until saturday, the 31st August.
See you all soon :)

GIVEAWAY > A foxy gift!

It's been quite a while since my last post on this blog and it feels kind of weird (good weird, I guess) making a new post again.
During that period of absence, I've finished my Post-Graduation on Design Jewellery and my Master thesis. Yay!
And now I have many plans and the time to share it with you so, I would like to celebrate this by giving you something.

Well, I'm giving you the chance to win The Fox Mask Ring from my new series Animal Shadows. (Yours will be the one in the first picture of this post, that has more green patina than the one on my Etsy shop).

All you have to do is follow these simple two steps:
- Follow my Facebook page,
- Share the post I placed on my Facebook page about the giveaway.

Make sure your sharing definitions are set to Public when you share it, so I can see it.
By the way, if you feel eager to keep up with what I'm making, don't forget to mark the option Show in news feed when you hit the like button on my Facebook page ;)
And that's it! You can enter the contest anytime until Saturday, 31st August, and I will let you know the winner's name on Sunday, 1st September.

Good luck! Not only to all of you girls but also to you guys, for one of my favorite guy's name is Fox.

Yes, I'm a POPs girl :)

POPs (Portuguese Original Projects) is an iniciative from Serralves Foundation to show new creative projects made by Portuguese designers.
This year, the 3rd Edition happens from the 23th June to the 10th July and, after a unique record of 473 submissions in several categories, there were 31 final selected projects.
And, guess what?! I'm one of the three jewellers selected (fireworks popping on my head!)

If you decide to come along and check on those interesting products locally, make sure you pay a visit to the Museum and the amazing garden.
Meanwhile, take a look at the list of finalists I've arranged for you with the few links I could find (if you happen to know anyone on the list, be a dear and leave a comment with their link, ok?).

Jewellery
Aurea Praga, Baguera, Raquel Bartosch

Accessories
Ana Guimarães, Mão d'arte by Francisca Figueira, Margarida Vieira, minidesigners studio, Nuno Pereira, Paula Nunes e Eurídice Conceição, Suzana Rezende

Decor
Amadeu Oliveira e Abdessalam Makhouf, Américo Correia, Ana Paula Pais, Joana de Almeida, Joana e Mafalda Araújo Jorge, Joana Magalhães Francisco, João Ferreira, João Gonçalves, José Morgado, Luís Giestas, Madalena Martins, Manuel Amaral Netto, Paulo Campos, Soares da Fonseca

Furniture
Alexandra Oliveira e Pedro Saraiva, Boca do Lobo studio, Cláudio Cruz da Silva, Goreti Silva, Joana Carmo Simões, João Carmo Simões, José Marini Bragança, Pedro Sottomayor

Take care and see you soon!

In the news(paper)!

Open publication - Free publishing - More jewellery

This week started with some exciting news for this yours truly - the latest number of the newspaper from AORP is already available online and I'm featured under the title "Jewellery Land"!
(just click on the image above to flip the pages).

AORP is the Jewellery and Watchmaking Association of Portugal which supports several professionals in the jewellery field, such as manufacturers, retailers, suppliers, gemologists and designers. It's on their site that I check silver and gold prices regularly. Among other services, they offer legal advice to members, organize conferences and seminars and issue a newspaper every three months with varied and valuable info about the national and international jewellery context. The paper edition of the newspaper is distributed for free to members.
If you'd like to take a look at previous numbers of the newspaper, go here.

So, I was delighted when they contacted me for an interview and a photo shooting.
Below, you can see some of the photos taken by Silvia Silva (from AORP's Communication and Image Department) who is part of this great team.

The photo shooting took place at Bling Bling, a beautiful shop in the heart of Porto, where you can find my rings amongst a carefuly chosen selection of products from Portuguese designers.

And, by the way, did you notice that now I'm a cover girl? Oooooh coolness.
Hope everyone is doing great! See you soon :)

   

Minerals, gemstones and fossiles

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This last weekend, I went to the 21th anual fair of minerals, gemstones and fossils. It takes place in my city Porto and although I don't use gemstones in my jewellery work (at least, not yet), I'm always amazed with the textures and colors that you can find in nature. Quite dramatic, huh?
(I bought two penguins and a rhino, as the ones you can see in the last picture. Animals, just can't resist them.)

What am I doing?

I know I've been procrastinating my masters project, but meanwhile I've started some experiments in wax for a new series of rings. What can I do? It's beyond my control.

Take a peek... on a peak :)