A jewellery-making journey – London, Florence, Kilkenny
I’ve delayed writing my last post about Florence because I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to the place. Having treated my Florence withdrawal symptoms with unnatural amounts of sleep and large doses of all the carbohydrate groups for the past while, I can finally reflect on it again without drifting into a thousand yard stare punctuated with wistful sighs.
Piacevole is my new favourite Italian word. It means enjoyable or pleasant and is pronounced pee-ah-chay-voh-lay. It's even enjoyable to tumble that morsel around in the mouth for a minute. It's so nice to say that I even find myself saying it aloud when I'm cleaning the toilet or sweltering at the bus stop - things which are decidedly un-piacevole. It sounds like that feeling of not having to carry a bag of any description anywhere. Picture that. Ahhhh, it's so piacevole.
Oven. Check. Long-handled utensil for adding items to, and removing items from the oven. Check. Lovely discs, topped with various ingredients in need of baking. Check. I'm not actually making pizza, but enamelling does feel a bit like I'm cooking up a miniature storm in the kitchen! The fact that il forno means both oven and kiln helps to reinforce the association. My toppings, however, are pure silver wire and ground glass powders of various hues, and my base is copper rather than dough.
Anyone who has played with the wax dripping from a candle burning atop a wine bottle will know how incredibly satisfying it can be. I've completely lost track of conversations in pubs and cafés where candle wax is available for the peeling, melting and construction of miniature skyscrapers. The distraction has proved so difficult to resist that, on one occasion, the person I was with snatched the wax encrusted bottle away and plonked it on a neighbouring table.
The Incremental Jeweller 