Celebrating jewellery collaborations - the Pass it Along Project

In March I wrote a blog post for the London Jewellery School blog about the Pass it Along Project, a jewellery collaboration project spearheaded and collated by my colleague, LJS tutor Penny Akester to challenge jewellers to work with others from around the world on the same piece of jewellery. I participated in the challenge alongside fellow LJS tutors Penny Akester, Hayley Kruger, Helen Walls, Annie Mason and Natasha Williams. The first iteration of the project is now complete so I thought I’d share some of the finished pieces.

(This blog post was originally written for the London Jewellery School blog and has been adapted to post on my blog)

What is the Pass it Along project?

The Pass It Along project is a group jewellery making challenge – it is open to any jeweller who was interested in challenging themselves. It was designed to enable unexpected and unplanned collaboration between makers – to generate new ideas and inspiration, as well as connections with other jewellers. The idea is based on the idea of a chain letter, game of pass the parcel, or a game of consequences – everyone taking part is allocated one of three themes, and starts to make a piece of jewellery, they didn’t complete the piece however, they passed it along to someone else in the group who continued to work on the jewel. It was then passed along to a third person who put the piece together and completed it / made it wearable, then on to a fourth who got to keep the piece, and who shared images of the piece. It meant that everyone who signed up got to take part at each stage of the project, and everyone got to keep a jewel too.

Some examples of the pieces collaborated on by LJS tutors

Piece no 32, was created by Tilly Wilkinson, using copper sheet and enamel, changed by Anna Campbell, who used wire, collated by Penny Akester, who used tercel yarn to add kumihimo braiding and created a necklace.

Piece no 13 was a collaboration between Angela Dickson, Ana Pina and Annie Mason

Piece no 35 was created by Rosa Elena Rivera using bronze metal clay, silver clay, Pebeo paints and bronze tubing to ‘create’ the pendant. Dicle Erver then ‘changed’ the piece by using wire binding techniques with craft wire in varying shades of purple to compliment the subtle tones originally created by Rosa with the Pebeo paints. Natasha Williams ‘collated’ the final piece by adding brass chain, which provides a backdrop for the whole piece and enables Dicle’s wire addition to wind it’s way around the chain and pulling the whole piece together.

Piece no 38 was started by Jeannette Froese LeBlanc in etched aluminium, changed by

Hayley Kruger using ink, pencil crayons, paper, perspex, saw piercing and finishing techniques. It was collated by Lisa Welbourn using sterling silver, silver clay, lava beads, rubber neck cord.

Piece no 56 was made by Julia Dainty, Helen C. Walls & Aimée Cope in Silver & Peridot.

Where can I see all the finished pieces?

You can view the online exhibition of pieces here

How can I get involved in the next Pass it Along round?

The Pass it Along project is a great challenge and learning experience for jewellery makers with any level of jewellery making experience. You can find out more information about the current project and can sign up to be involved in the next round here.
The next round will start in January 2017.