Theresa Burger

Degree Work, 2009

Theresa — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:56:33 +0000

My degree work for CPUT, BTech 2009.

2009…a little taster.

Theresa — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:10:18 +0000

A couple newish pieces I managed to take quick photos of…

Silver Resin and gold leaf ring.

Quartz pierced out silver earrings

Cultured Pearl Brooch

First piece.

Theresa — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:32:01 +0000

Finally its begun and my 1st piece is some what done… for now, I am deciding on possible changes but for now it remains like this. What it is is a pendant, the frame hollow constructed out of sterling silver and then set clear resin inside holding gold leaf.

Added some photos of the process I go through when making an item of jewellery, just to give you a rough idea. The inspiration behind this one and the piece to follow ( a ring I am starting to work on) is my Btech collection I have to produce this year. My theme for this collection is my family, basically creating a family tree inspired jewellery, this particular piece is inspired by my brother.

Design process

Designing process

Some time during manufacture

Resin pendant

Had fun making this piece, debating with myself on changing it slightly but we shall see, using design elements from this pendant into the ring I am gonna start making this week!

More inspiration :

Theresa — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:26:42 +0000

While doing research for my Btech, I have stumbled upon more amazingly cool jewellers and wanted to share some of my finds…

Here we go …

Cristian Dorigatti

To view the rest of his collections, lookie here…

Next is Rachelle Varney …

Rachelle Varney

Lastly for now is Suzi Tibbetts :

Suzi Tibbetts

Starting off my Design Process …

Theresa — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:21:28 +0000

When starting to design my collection to accompany my BTech research report, it seemed the only logical step was to do it on my family. Basically at the end of every year we put together an exhibition of our years work and display our manufactured pieces, generally students work to theme … i guess it makes things easier, some students even base their Btech on the pieces they made. It paints picture if everything is coherent and connected…so I am designing my pieces around my family tree you could say.

I am not embarking on tracing my family linage to way back when, just going as far back as to my great grandparents. I am very excited about the whole process, I sat down with both grandmothers and questioned them about their folks, gathered photos and documented dates. Its not going to be a very in depth study as I’m not a genealogy student but I have been finding that it makes great design inspiration!

Paternal Grandparents

Maternal Grandparents

My artistic aim for this collection will be one of manufacturing physical objects that represent these people that I know as my family. For me personally, its about making a tangible object that captures these people as individuals. I have started with my immediate family, which makes it easier because i personally know them quiet well, but i know that come to the great-grandparents it will be rather challenging as i never met them let alone know them. In those cases i am going to be working more from source material, like little stories my grandparents have told me about or photographs.

Old photo of my Mom

Btech Blog – The start…

Theresa — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:41:59 +0000

My final year of 4th begun this week, part of the course is to document all our process…designing and writing of our research report. My report centers around jewellery objects, specifically the ‘jewellery heirloom’

Are heirloom jewels important to us, if they are,what makes them so important…

Its this importance that sparked my interest in this subject, I decided that it would be a good start to my research report for my Btech.
When deciding what topic to pick for this report, we were told to choose something we wouldn’t mind spending hours researching and even talking about, a topic that could turn us on and bring out serious passion from us!
Since I started to study jewellery design at CPUT, I found myself quiet interested in this notion of the ‘object‘ (the object being an item of jewellery, in my case…) How we as human beings respond and interact with these precious objects, especially those that have been left being by someone that has died … it isn’t about being morbid or anything.

Its about a precious item that was left behind, Yes, any item left behind by someone that you once cared for automatically becomes precious…but there is something more to jewellery. Something so intensely personal, it seems to me that this idea of a jewellery heirloom is heightened by the fact that jewellery is so much more personal. The reason being, well for me anyway is that jewellery is worn on the body.

Okay, so lets compare a old clock to an old engagement ring. The clock will live in someones house but an engagement ring is worn, everyday, for probably most of that persons life. Doesn’t it automatically have more depth to it than the clock?
That ring is also only made even more precious to you, if it was given to you by someone you cared for.
So yes, this topic gets to me, it speaks to me if I could say that. Although jewellery is just a small object most of the time, its a simple metal object worn on our bodies, made from a precious metal that is ‘valuable‘…it becomes so much more when we attach a symbolism to it, weather that symbolism is one of wealth or success, or love and sentiment. When are human beings engage with jewellery, we base ideas and assosiations on those items and they become so much more than just the materials they have been manufactured out of.

December Already ?!

Theresa — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:44:01 +0000

Shocked that 2008 is almost over and the rush has begun as Christmas gets closer, working at a jewellers in a popular mall in Cape Town equals the definite Xmas madness that accompanies retail!

All of us at Marios Jewellers are confidant despite the global economic climate that this year’s season will be a fantastic one, designs have poured in as the wedding season has begun!
So yes, they are keeping me busy indeed and I must admit I’m excited for December to arrive so that I may have my first experience of retail during Christmas!

Despite work, my degree work has been keeping me occupied after hours. Writing my thesis and gathering my research and findings has proved to be quiet entertaining as I have stumbled onto a few gems in the world of jewellery!

Thank God for the internet, that’s all I can say!

Wanting to share a couple of great finds I ran across through my research, I have narrowed down a couple of jewellery artists that are definitely worth taking time out to have a look at, all happen to be super talented female jewellers:

Mah Rana, is a London based jeweller who explores subjects within her work such as jewellery’s role within a persons life and the attachments we form to our jewellery. Her work has provided me with much needed inspiration at time and guidance with the way in which she executes her work.

Mah Rana

Julia De Ville, a power house creative in my eyes! Her work will astound anyone I am sure! I don’t want to say much as I think the visuals speak for them selves!

Julia De Ville

Finally before I go on a bit too much, the last lady is Melanie Bilenker, her work is highly unusual … she creates 3D images by setting pieces of her own hair in resin.

She draws inspiration mainly from moments of her daily life, capturing mundane moments and transforming them into an these precious objects!

Melanie Bilenker

PlatAfrica Ring Design and Process

Theresa — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:59:17 +0000

Wanted to add a little background visually to my PlatAfrica ring manufacture, I only woke up a little too late into the manufacture to start taking photo’s.

The photographs are from the filing onto final polishing only. The final photographs can be found here.

Drawing - Watercolour

Manufacture - filing down the rounded edges and rims.

Manufacture

Final Polish

PlatAfrica 2008 Ring

Theresa — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:43:50 +0000

In August of this year, all 4th years were given the option to participate in PlatAfrica’s annual design and manufacturing competition. There is a separate student category and this year was PlatAfrica’s 10 year anniversary, hence the theme being just that…Anniversary!

PlatAfrica Ring view 1

Anyway design processing begun in June/July and we started manufacturing early July as hand in was mid-August.

My motivation was something classic but modern and edgy. I wanted to create a piece that commemorated the idea of an old-fashioned Love story, this idea of eternal unity between two parties.

Manufacturing began with allot of help from my lecturer, the ring was forged out of a single piece of metal and welded together. The beauty about platinum as I discovered was not just all its rarity and physical aesthetics but also its versatility as a metal, one is able to almost sculpt the metal!

The whole experience was great, had an incredible amount of fun making this ring! The finishing touches came with just a high polish and finally just setting two cultured pearls in the inner rim of the ring.

PlatAfrica Ring - view 2

PlatAfrica Ring - view 3

The winners of this years competition look fantastic, the work is worth a look, there is great design talent in South Africa, in both the professional and student category! My piece came within in the top 40!!

Top 40 - CPUT

PlatAfrica Ring - on the finger

My favourite new Cape Town graffiti …

Theresa — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:28:51 +0000

Stumbled across a fantastic piece of street art on the weekend, along side the M5 highway which runs through a greater area of Cape Town.

Love this piece so much, just had to share!

Would like to credit the artist but not sure who he or she is …

Graffiti - the tea party?

Detail

Snail detail

Graffiti

Detail

Credit to the following artists for this super work: Falko1( gorillas,trees and partly snail details). Motel7 (pandas and names of artists) and Play one(snails only).