The Brilliantly Birmingham blog will shortly be shutting up its proverbial shop for another year, but before we go, we’ve got a couple of VERY important announcements.

First, a thank you to everyone who came along to either of our two seminars this year.

If you came along, you’ll know already how fascinating, practical and generally informative they were for anyone who’s thinking of forging, or has already forged a career in jewellery.  Being a full time designer maker can often be a daunting experience, but by hearing from people who’d seen it and done it all before, it made the post-recessionary outlook look all the more rosy. 

Thanks therefore must go to all of the contributors, organisers, panel guests and, most importantly, those of you who came along and learnt a thing or two.  They’ll be back next year, pinky promise.

Second, Brilliantly Birmingham has now not only gone continental, but GLOBAL!

The Paradigma exhibition, which graced not only Birmingham School of Jewellery but was also involved in a highly successful exchange with a similar group of designer makers from Barcelona, is now being sent to BEIJING!

The exhibition was one of eight projects selected by the International Partnership Programme to “sell” Birmingham’s cultural offer abroad.  So, the Birmingham Royal Ballet is heading off to the USA, Fierce! Is going to Sweden, and The School of Jewellery is off to China.

It’s all happening in May, so watch this and various other spaces to find out more. 

Long term, it’s all part of Birmingham’s bid to become UK City of Culture in 2013, something I’d be flabbergasted at if we don’t win (Norwich, Sheffield and Londonderry? Pah!)

So, on that massively upbeat note, we bid you farewell to Brilliantly Birmingham 2009/10.  It’s been bigger, and better, than ever before, and this year’s festivities were a truly fitting way to mark its tenth birthday.

See you later this year for more of the same.

The Brilliantly Birmingham team.

The team are still working away, though, promoting the brand and jewellery making in Birmingham.  And part of that is to showcase the designer makers who’ve taken part.

Hence our final interview in our series looking at the people whose jaw dropping work has shaped the amazing Brilliantly Birmingham branding over the years.  They’ve all featured in a retrospective exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which finished last week.

Our final profile is on Katherine Marchbank, whose work was featured in the earlier days of the festival, back in 2003….

 “If I could describe my work in one sentence, I’d probably say it’s simply expressing my visual thoughts of movement, through jewellery.  I think my style has changed dramatically since I exhibited at Brilliantly Birmingham, though.  My graphic style’s much stronger now, and the materials I use are much broader.

Studying in Birmingham at Bournville College of Art was one of the best years of my life.  Getting to exhibit at Brilliantly Birmingham enhanced my confidence and gave me some really great opportunities, which meant I could work with other creative people.  It helped me to see my work in a different light.

I taught at the School of Jewellery for a while, and I saw it as the place in the Jewellery Quarter for evolving contemporary thoughts and styles.  Manufacturing and production in the Quarter is still fantastic.

My work draws its inspiration from movement in dance, paintings, puppetry, movement in life, basically a combination of mental and physical.  I’m fascinated by how we use colour in our lives.  I love watching dance, I love nature, and laughing at funny things!

I have no idea where I’ll be in five years’ time, but it was so exciting to see posters hanging outside Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery when this retrospective season originally began, and it’s even better to be exhibiting inside!

I don’t think I could do, or be, anything else other than a jewellery designer maker.”

Tomorrow’s final walk kicks off, as ever, at 2pm, and it gets back to the basics of what the Jewellery Quarter is all about.  Jewellery, of course!

The walk will be all about how jewellery making is still thriving in the quarter more than two hundred years after it all began.

Chris will be calling in to a traditional studio – which has changed little since jewellery was first made there in the eighteenth century.

Now it’s all booked up but in the event of any cancellations, the walk kicks off at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter on Vyse Street. 

If you’ve been to a Walk this year, we’d love to hear from you about what you thought of them, so get in touch with us using the comments page below!

The talk starts at 2pm on Saturday at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and is called “Form To Function”, a session all about giving new and emerging designer makers the confidence to make creative decisions and identify business options in the early stages of their career. 

And with times as hard as they are for all of us right now, we could all do with a helping hand, right?

The panel again is made up of established designer makers who’ve set up successful businesses, from local boy James Newman to designers du jour Tatty Devine.  2010 looks set to be another challenging year economically, so the chance to grab a few nuggets of expertise from these guys will go a long way.

There are a few limited spaces left on this weekend’s talk, and another one entitled Brilliantly Birmingham 1809 which I’ll tell you more about this week.  To book on either of them, email is on prim.currie@birmingham.gov.uk or call us on 0121 464 1187.

Form to Function, Saturday 9th January, 2pm, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

It’s the first of this year’s Brilliantly Birmingham talks, with esteemed guests including jewellery designers du jour Tatty Devine, Birmingham’s very own James Newman, highly respected ceramic artist Nicola Malkin and Dorothy Hogg MBE, V&A’s jeweller in residence and former Head of Jewellery and Silversmithing at Edinburgh College of Art.

It’s all about turning your artistry in to a lasting career, identifying business opportunities, and making the most of your talent, from people who’ve done just that.

Booking is essential, so please give us a call on 0121 464 1187 to reserve your space – places are limited.

All it leaves for me is to wish you a very Merry Christmas and happy new year, and we hope Brilliantly Birmingham’s tenth anniversary has satisfied your appetites for contemporary jewellery!

You’ve got one last chance to check out a fantastic, and unprecedented, collaboration between designer makers from Birmingham and those from Barcelona in Spain. It closes at the School of Jewellery on Friday 18th.

Eight staff from Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery have joined forces with eight from the Escola Massa’s school of jewellery in a kind of adult foreign exchange.

It’s called Paradigma to reflect the exhibition’s aim – identifying and sharing cultural paradigms and presenting diversity of ideas, technology, form and function at both institutions.

The results are, of course, stunning and are showcased in an exhibition at the School of Jewellery on Vittoria Street in the heart of the quarter.  It’s also been showcased in Barcelona, but with all those aeroplane taxes, it might end up being an expensive journey!

It’s another reminder, anyway, that Brilliantly Birmingham has forged an international presence over the past decade, and is a genuine beacon of artistic merit in our great city.

Barcelona may have the Ramblas, Gaudi and the weather.  But our very own Jewellery Quarter’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, remember! It’s something to be immensely proud of.

In our third look back at the designer makers who’ve flown the flag for Brilliantly Birmingham down the years, we turn our attentions to Lisa Juen, whose work was featured in 2007.  She joins seven other designer makers remembered in the stunning Retrospective exhibition currently showing at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

We caught up with her to find out how her life, and work, has changed since she left Birmingham and moved to the Orient…

“Brilliantly Birmingham was the first exhibition I took part in after my graduation.  It gave me the confidence to step out and show my work.  For me, Brilliantly Birmingham was the best start I can think of!

Just as the exhibition opened, I moved from Birmingham to Shanghai, so the change of country, and more importantly the change of culture definitely influenced and changed my work. My pieces have always been loud and a bit quirky, but living in China enhanced that! I hope my work is defined by the thought that everything is different and anything is possible.

Birmingham was a great city to live and work in, and the Jewellery Quarter is a great place for designer makers.  It’s got such a long history and endless resources, techniques and knowledge to be found.  It’s such an enriching and helpful place for a maker, and it feels great to have the opportunity to exhibit my work again at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I hope it won’t be the last time!

I draw inspiration from my surroundings, my friends and family, anything that impresses or shocks me is sure to make it in to my work.  I hope in five years’ time I’ll still be making jewellery somewhere around the globe.  There’s nothing else I’d rather do, my passion is my job! In a fantasy world though, I’d love to have invented the Karaoke machine so I can use it properly!”

This weekend will probably be the busiest couple of shopping days of the year, as rampant shoppers clamour to the likes of the Bullring to grab their last few presents.

Just, for a second, imagine those thousands of people; queuing not just to be served, but for the escalators, the lift, the car park, for lunch.  Do you really want to put yourself through all that? Do you?!

Well, here at Brilliantly Birmingham things are a bit more relaxed, but none the less exciting.  This is our Big Weekend.  Not only are most of our exhibitions up and running now (see the event guide), it’s also our Open Studios day on Saturday AND another of Chris Upton’s Walks in the Quarter.  So you could pick up a bespoke (and affordable) piece of jewellery for a loved one, and learn something at the same time.

Kathryn Campbell-Legg, who is opening her studio

No less than six studios from some of Birmingham’s best contemporary jewellery designers will be opening their doors for one day only on Saturday, giving you the chance to see how real jewellery is made, buy something, or even commission something new.  Many designers are using workshops, equipment and materials that have been used in the Quarter for 250 years, so it really is a fascinating insight.

Download the event guide from the link on the right to find out which studios are taking part.

And, while you’re in the Quarter, if you fancy an early morning stroll in the company of a charming historian, Chris Upton is holding his second Walk, Assaying, Electro-plating and Boating.

It gets started at the Assay Office on Newhall Street at 10am, with a special behind the scenes look at how gold and silver is hallmarked, before a tour of Birmingham’s hidden canal, before getting a unique opportunity to buy gifts made in the Jewellery Quarter and hallmarked at the Assay Office.

As ever, make sure you download the event guide for all of the finer details.  But the magic number, for any queries or bookings, is 0121 464 1187.

We’re all about pushing the boundaries at Brilliantly Birmingham, and bringing contemporary jewellery to people and places that wouldn’t normally have access to it….

Hence our idea for a Pop Up Shop!

It opens tomorrow (Saturday) at the Pavilions Shopping Centre, and will bring hand made jewellery - much of which has been made in Birmingham - to the thronging masses pulsing through the city centre.  

If you’ve never bought hand made jewellery direct from the designer who made it before, now is your chance.  Because after all, who really wants a mass produced when you can commission your very own piece (without paying the earth for it)?  It’s a no brainer, really.

There’ll also be free workshops and talks over various weekends, so it’s worth popping down to find out more.

Much of what makes Brilliantly Birmingham so great is the way it nurtures emerging and young talent and gives them a showcase for their work.

Occasionally, though, it’s also important to recognise Birmingham’s unrivalled jewellery making heritage that’s kept the city at the centre of the UK jewellery trade for centuries.

The Assay Office is at the epicentre of that heritage, and this Thursday there’s a unique opportunity to visit the office on Newhall Street to view its Private Silver Collection.

These visits are usually reserved for organised groups, so you won’t get a chance like this again.  As well as the silver collection, you’ll also be able to view the Library, and hear from the curator Dr Sally Baggott about the history of hallmarking and the Assay Office itself.

If you’re free this Thursday, either at 10.30am or 2pm, book yourself on a visit today.  It’ll cost just £7, which I think’s a bit of a bargain.

To book a place, call  0871 871 6020 or email silver@theassayoffice.co.uk