My ACD Holmesfest Piece

[kerravonsen]

The acd_holmesfest reveals have happened! This is what I made for it.

Title: Treasure

Recipient: tweedisgood

Artist: kerravonsen

Rating: G

Summary: Holmes is the gem, Watson is the setting.

Artist's Notes: I was struck, when going over the early canon, that Watson's initial motive for chronicling Holmes' exploits was in order to give Holmes the credit he deserved, and that Holmes, in his turn, didn't really understand why Watson was being so (overly) dramatic in his retellings. That was when I realized: Holmes is the gem, and Watson is the setting in which the gem is displayed.

So, how does this 3D art (which happens to be jewellery) display that? The foundation of the pendant is a blue dodecahedron; this symbolizes Holmes in his amazing perception (pentagons representing the five senses), of his search for truth (blue for truth), of his comprehension of the big picture (twelve sides, twelve representing the whole world) and his cold scientific nature (a Platonic solid). But the dodecahedron is enclosed by gold filigree and wire, and embellished with spirals. This is Watson, being warm and emotional (gold) and prone to dramatic embellishments and atmospheric storytelling (the filigree, wire, spirals). (Also the filigree hopefully evokes quirky Victoriana)

The cord of the necklace likewise follows this theme, with the inside of the cord being smooth blue twisted cord (for Holmes) and is completely enclosed by gold chainmaille (for Watson).

Technical Notes: (for those interested in the details) The pendant is made of laser-cut blue glittery acrylic pentagons glued together into a dodecahedron, then embellished with gold-plated brass filigree and wire. The glue used was black hot glue (and I had to scrape the edges of the dodecahedron with a razor blade in order to scrape off the excess, that wasn't fun). The pendant measures 5cm from corner to corner, and 4cm from side to side.

The necklace cord is made from twisted cord (blue polyester cord and blue spool-knit metallic thread) and chainmaille. Chainmaille Weave: Inverted Round. Rings: gold-plated brass, WD=0.8mm, ID=4.4mm, OD=6mm, AR=5.5; half the rings are soldered shut for strength.

(click on the thumbnails to view the full-size images)

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Design notes:

Ideas

• Delicate wire-work
• brass-stamp filigree

Holmes

Symbolism:

• Perception
• Knowledge
• Cool
• Cunning
• Subtlety

Symbols that suit:

• Cat
• Sphinx
• Eye
• Five (Perception - five senses)
• Ten (Knowledge)
• Labradorite (hidden knowledge)
• Blue - Truth
  • Kyanite
    I like this one better because Kyanite is full of straightness in its crystals. However, the pieces I have are also all irregular/ragged, which doesn't suit.
  • Blue Goldstone (blue for Truth)
    I like this because it's a man-made stone, wedding beauty and science. The square beads are also very regular.
• Green - Knowledge
• Dodecahedron? (Platonic solid made of pentagons)
  • If making a dodecahedron from pentagons, the following information is useful:
    • Angles between sides: 108 degrees
    • Half angle between sides: 54 degrees. This is needed if the side-thickness is not negligible, and the sides are not made of clay.

Watson

• Warm
• Humanity (in the sense of being warm, humane, the Everyman to whom things are explained)
• Loyalty
• Courage
• Healing - referring to him being a doctor, but I can't recall that he does much doctoring
• His writing tends to be sensationalist but also picturesque.
• Reflecting on "A Study in Scarlet", Watson seems to be unique in his admiration of Holmes, while Gregson and Lestrade are at turns scornful and exploitative.
  • Holmes is the gem, Watson is the setting.

Symbols that suit:

• Dog
• Five (Humanity, Life, Grace)

Holmes & Watson

• Partnership
• Teamwork

Design

• Dodecahedron made of blue-glittery acrylic pentagons and glued together with black hot glue
  • Antique Copper filigree on the corners bent in three directions
    • the colour does not suit
  • Gold filigree on the corners bent in three directions
    • the filigree that was the right size was too hard and would not bend
  • Gold bead-caps on the corners bent in three directions
  • Wire bail glued on with one filigree in the middle of it
  • And little spirals of gold wire as accents
• Chain
  • Lorenz's Forget Me Not
    • too wide
  • Dragonsteps
    • too thick
  • Locked Twist
    • too shaggy/messy
• dense/heavy blue cord
  • spool-knit blue metallic thread (goes with the pentagons exactly!)
    • too thin by itself, needs to be combined with another cord
  • Lucet-woven cord done with crochet hook
    • too slow, would be better done with a proper lucet and a pick
  • Rumanian Lace cord
    • too flat and thick
    • not suited to two colours of yarn
  • twisted cord with metallic thread and polyester string
• blue cord is enclosed by gold
  • with gold thread spool-knit around it.
    • the automatic spool-knitter kept on slipping (cord looked lovely, but longest length was six inches)
    • hand spool-knitting didn't even get that far
  • with gold thread crocheted around it
    • too messy and uneven
  • with gold thread wrapped around it
    • doesn't support the concept of the gold enclosing the blue while still being able to see the blue inside it
  • with gold maille enclosing it
    • Inverted Round

Inverted Round with WD=0.8 ID=4.4 Brass from Empire Beads, there are matching soldered rings which would make the chain less weak. The other advantage of choosing those rings is that they are small and delicate, so the cord won't be too thick.

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Looking at the above, note that the items which are struck out were approaches that did not work. There were quite a few of these!

Note also that this was made before I made my own lucet. There is a method for luceting with a crochet hook, but as noted above it is too slow.

One thing the notes don't say is how much time I spent looking on the internet for dodecahedrons, and for pentagons suitable for building a dodecahedron from. I didn't want to spend $70 on a quartz crystal dodecahedron from a New Age crystal shop, no. The dodecahedron I made ended up being rather larger than I had expected, but I didn't have time to order more smaller pentagons, since these were not things kept in stock, they were laser-cut when the order was made, and that took time I didn't have. So I made do with the large size of the pendant.

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P.S. I gave this necklace to rj_anderson. 8-)

Comments

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Lovely and very true.

[kerravonsen]

Thank you.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

That is a lovely necklace and a great demonstration of the creative process.

Yes, I too tend to think of Sherlock as a cat, partly I think to ACD and partly due to Jeremy Brett's earlier portrayals.

I thought initially you had used some sort of gem gamers die until you revealed how. A lot more effort indeed to construct the shape. Bravo and your recipient is a very lucky person.

[kerravonsen]

Gamers dice did cross my mind, but then I would have had to figure out how to remove the numbers without leaving a trace, and I didn't know how to do that.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

What a gorgeous piece! I love the symbolism, it's perfect for Holmes and Watson.

[kerravonsen]

\o/
Thank you.

[dozmuffinxc.livejournal.com]

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor...

Beautiful! Oh, I'm so excited to see this at last, and you definitely did not disappoint. Wonderful work! I always seeing and reading about your fandom-inspired jewelry. Sooooo cool :D

[kerravonsen]

\o/

I am quite pleased with this one, though it did cause me a lot of trouble along the way.