International Design Congress: New Design Paradigms - Design Culture Digital Creativity
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology Taiwan, 1-4 November 2005

Presented a Conference Paper:
The Intersection between Lacquer and Laser Technology in Contemporary Jewellery Design​
(joint author Wendy Parker)

The age of digital technology have allowed jewellery and object designers to assimilate industrial working production processes into a studio base practice. This combination offers the craft practitioner new solutions particularly in working with mediums in new ways. It provides the user the opportunity to tailor and transfer technological ideas into a craft base methodology. These results arising from the tailoring and transferring of ideas and industrial processes offers the efficiencies of the new age. Furthermore it contributes to new tools and techniques. This form of practice is reflective of the technological influences in jewellery and object design making today.

Increasing numbers of jewellery and object design practitioners are collaborating with industries, making it an integral part of their problem solving in the design making process. This intersection endorses the notion of craft in the context of the computer and machine age technology. It is an emergence which represents a new dialogue where new technologies and traditional craft skills are employed in jewellery and object design production. These liaisons between the practitioner and industry have provided new ways of thinking and making for the practitioner.

As a contemporary jeweller, my practice and work is about redefining the material language of Vietnamese lacquer and its application on contemporary wearables and objects. It is about reinterpreting the applications of a traditional medium along side new technologies. The visual motif, the chrysanthemum is used in my work as an iconic interpreter. This floral symbol is common throughout the art histories and it is articulated across many decorative art surfaces, particularly in Asia. The visual style and surface ornamentation of the chrysanthemum on an object conveys information about the material, maker, and motif. Its aesthetics is a manifestation of the current technologies of that time. My interpretation of the chrysanthemum comprises of traditional and modern technologies for new visual translation. Taking on traditional forms of lacquering and fusing it with surface imagery, rendered by laser technology, a new style and exterior of visual language is developed.

The use of digital technology has assimilated in my design and making progress. This synthesis, positions crafts current status in an ever increasing changing context. I am one example from this convergence.