I have not blogged for a while because I have been very busy planning and preparing:

Before starting my Handshake journey in 2011 I thought my only chance of travelling from little old New Zealand to Germany to experience Schmuck week in Munich would be if I miraculously got into Schmuck – something that seemed almost impossible and so out of reach (it still does).

I am now preparing to head to Munich for the 4th time. Three times with Handshake and once with The Jewellers Guild of Greater Sandringham – many thanks to CNZ, Mentors 101 and our dedicated community of supporters.

I have been privileged to be the exhibition technician for the 3 Handshake shows in Munich, collaborating with Peter Deckers to create huge exhibitions out of what can be sourced locally and what little we can send over. This is a huge amount of work and it takes me away from actually making jewellery but I really enjoy it, it is part of my practice. This year we have 2 exhibitions to set up so it will be really exciting. Full steam ahead!

In preparation for the Handshake/Dialogue Collective show “It Will All Come Out In The Wash” and our presentation slot at the Messe, I have been glued to Premier Pro building slideshows with soundtracks – putting all our collaboration images into order alphabetically or by their morning and evening time slot.

When Peter asked me to find an image for publicity for the HSDC show I could not think of one image of the thousands in the Dropbox that was better than all the others – one that would include us all and speak in some way of the collaboration process between there and here over the past year. Scrolling through to find one I realised that our collaboration story was happening one by one. All I needed to do was zoom out.