The initial text I was chosen is "To be, or not to be, that is the question" in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1. It is a soliloquy spoken by the protagonist prince Hamlet. The reason I chose it is because recently I quite like a Japanese song,  "" ( There was a Time when I Thought about Dying). The song talks about a woman who intended to end her life, because she is not socially active, felt empty in her life, but she longs for love as she felt human warmth once. I like the last few verses very much. 

There is something bright and hope here, which giving a warmth in the whole song. And that's the reason which touched me so much. We all will have a difficult time somewhere, but if there is something you expect even just a little thing, you will have the courage to live. The little hope will provide you strength to face those difficulties. I want to encourage those people who have a difficult time and intended to end their lives once. I want to let people think about life and death, their significance of life, the reason for living in this world. I hope they can make a right and careful decision when they intend to end their lives. I hope my jewellery design can convey this kind of message, the life is always full of difficulties, but there will be something good in the future. Live for the present. All of the possibilities we have, just because we are here. I want to put something expressing warmth and hope in the jewellery design, therefore I am considering using woods as the material because it is a natural material, gives me an impression of warmth and home. I think I will also put dark elements like death, destruction in the design to highlight the precious bright element.

This song reminded me of the famous text "To be, or not to be" in the play Hamlet. As this soliloquy was spoken when Prince Hamlet contemplates death and suicide, bemoaning the pain and unfairness of life but acknowledging that the alternative might be worse. I think it is a big question we need to think about our lives. In the beginning, I chose this text rather than the Japanese song is because it is quite famous, which most of the people know about it, but now I decided to choose the title of the Japanese song "There was a time when I thought about dying" as the text I am going to develop, because it touches me more. Every time when I listen to the song, and thinking deeply the meaning behind it, I can't help to tear.

To understand the text with a better understanding, I visualised the lyrics in the song first by drawing a few small illustrations. I also picked some text that related to the song which made me impressive, like "To be, or not to be" from Hamlet; "I think, therefore I am" from Rene Descartes; and a text from "The later years" by  Dazai Osamu, which narrates that he intended to end his life, while when he received a summer style kimono in the new year then he decided to live until this summer. These texts also talk about life and death, the reason for their existing, struggled in life. I visualized these texts by drawing illustrations and collage for understanding the theme of the song deeply: life and death and thinking about what I can do to interpret the song using jewellery.

Therefore I made a visual dictionary of the symbolism that about important elements support me to live in this world and elements that give people pressure, makes them depressive to end their lives. I researched Vanitas paintings, as his paintings contains collections of objects symbolic of inevitability of death, it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent. By doing that, it helps me to think about the theme deeply, provided me with a few ideas of elements I could use to interpret the song, such as green shoot, it symbolises new life and growth, egg symbolises fragile life, and candle represents light and living life. 

 By researching Vanitas symbolic paintings of death, I also found the Memento mori (remember that you will die) jewellery, an antique collection of jewellery pieces that acts as a reminder to cherish the days you've lived. Some of them are made of hair from the deceased, therefore I thought I might also use the objects of living people to convey a positive message of encouraging them to overcome their struggles in life and to live. 

Today, I made my third and fourth models. 

I made a wooden scales. One end with a  burning candle and broken heart, the other end with a burnt out candle. The burning candle with a broken heart represents the painful life, the candle that burnt out represents the deceased. I want to use this model to let viewers think about and balance the value of life and death. I smeared the burnt out candle with black ink because black usually has a negative connotation, it is a mysterious colour associated with fear and the unknown. 

For the fourth model, I made a crossroad of life and death, the crossroad has a shape of the capital letter"Y", the phonogram is "why". I want the viewers to decide their live or stay in the world cautiously. The three divided parts are covered by grass, there is no difference, which means unknown, because you do not know what is in the future waits for you, so you need to make a decision carefully.

By these four models, I am thinking about the journey of life. There is always a path and direction in the model, from the end to the other end. I quite like the structure of suspension bridge, each wood piece is just like each step in life. I might use it in my jewellery design to represent the life path.

From my visual dictionary of symbolism, I quite like the symbolism of egg, it is the cradle of new life.After it gave birth, it is dead, but also it could represent the fragile life. I like the organic shape of the eggshell, the broken edge symbolise the difficulty in life. I think it might be an interesting material to apply in jewellery design. I made a model with the egg, to interpret my understanding of the text “There was a time when I thought about dying”, as the eggshell represents fragile life, weak human beings.

I stuffed earth, stone, sand and dry flower in the eggshell as if a flowerpot, to represent the difficulty in life, and the eggshell just like human life, we face lots of plights. I put a green shoot in the middle to symbolise the hope. The shoot live in a hard environment, its similar is already dead, but it is strong, try hard to survive in this kind of environment. I want to use the model to encourage the people alive to be strong, keeping survive more effectively, cherish life, time and everything.

I made the other model using egg as well. The broken eggshell represents hard life. Those green branches across are like challenges in life, they hurt you, but at the same time, they can help you to grow. This model lets me think of the risk and danger to hold the fragile life by the green branches.Because when I made it, it is not stable to stand still at the bottom is not heavy enough. However, I think it is a good idea to create a sense of riskiness, to remind the viewers their life is fragile, you need to care it cautiously.

I made my 7th model today. This time I created a handicapped bird with fabric and wool felt. And placed it in an open cage.

I used fabrics to tailor the shape of the bird, sewed and stuffed it with filling cotton as a rudiment of bird body, to add the wool felt to it by liquid glue, in order to give it a realistic appearance. I used wire, paper tape and watercolour to make a single bird's leg; I covered one wing of it with a bandage, the other wing is lost. I created this kind of handicapped bird image to enhance its plight to insinuate those hopeless humans. I placed it in an open cage with enough water and food, to show that it does not have other choices. The handicapped bird longers for freedom, while it could only stay in the cage, once it steps out of the cage, the only consequence for it is death. Freedom or death. It is hard to choose. I hope those people like the bird could be brave and face their situation with courage. Life is harsh but there would be some way for you to live. 

Today, I used found objects to make my last three models. For these models, I focus on the metal and physical reasons that depress people.

For the first one, I used a mask and made a sack to contain a few natural elements and all these objects in the sack have their meaning. Like stones symbolise burden, the candle symbolises life, tangle thread represents thoughts, decaying wood stands for difficulties in life. The sack suggests the human brain, what decide our action is our brain, it bears so many burdens and pressure that may knock off us. I tried to reveal the invisible thoughts that hide deep in our mind by using the symbolism, the reasons why people struggle in their lives because of the heavy burden. 

For the second one, I used scissors, photo frame and red woolen yarn. I intertwined the frame with scissors by red woolen yarn to present messy thoughts, a photo frame is an object that you keep your past in it, it bears your memories and relationship with people. The idea of this model is inspired by a Chinese poem, one of the lines expresses the feeling “Shear constant tangled is sadness, do not have a general feeling in their hearts.” I  think the human relationship is one of the most important reasons that depress them, it just like a lump of tangled messy thread that not easy to cut off, eventually the scissors might be also tangled with it.

The last model, I used linen with twine food such as pea, cherry potato, baguette to give it a gun appearance. The reason I made it into a gun-like is that I want to let depressive viewers to think about their significance of life, what is more important for them and how they make a decision when they face life and death. Food is essential to support life, while the gun is for protection from harm but at the same time, it could destroy lives.

I have a few design ideas which I use the main elements of bridge, candles, bandage, dry flowers and egg. But among them, I think those designs with eggs are more effective. Because the egg is a fragile object that insinuates the human fragile life. I designed a few rings with eggshell and also a necklace with eggshell. But I think egg ring is better because it was worn in the place both the wearer and viewers could see, to keep a reminder of the wearer and viewers preciousness of life.

For one ring, I used the egg model as the main idea, but add a few wires to the surface of the eggshell to enhance the sufferings in life. There are two egg rings I designed a spiral ring setting for them to symbolise tortuous life. For one ring, I designed an upstretched wire cephalophorum-like holder which supports a candle inside the metal spiral ring setting, the upstretched wire represents continuous difficulty in life, while the candle symbolises existing life and hope in the future. By keeping the basic spiral ring setting, I changed the inside setting which I gave it an upstretched green shoot to represent hope. But I like the use of candle more, as the elements in one candle it stand for lots of meanings, such as was represents the past, candlelight represents the present and hope. Once it went out, it then symbolises death. The candle itself is almost equal to human life, our final destination is just like the candle after it went out, we die. The wax remained and the gas is just like what we left in this world. I also like the structure of the design, as it is upstretched it also symbolises the journey of life, while there is always an ending, and hope as well. Therefore, I decided to use this design and started doing model-making and experiments of the spiral ring setting.

 Today I did a few experiments with metal, I think metal is the best material to use, because it is hard and cool that symvolises the suffering in life.

I tried to create the spiral ring setting, therefore I used a few strips of aluminium first to turn it into a spiral shape because aluminium has good ductility it is to turn into shapes. In the beginning, I used single long flat aluminium strip, I changed its shape by hand, it is easy to get the shape I want, but I feel it is kind of too flat, in that, I use double layers of aluminium strips this time. I did the spot- welding on the two pieces first and then turned it into a spinal ring setting shape with the extra leaf-like shape extended, to give it kind of artistic looking, but I still feel it is too flat. 

In that, I wanted to give the aluminium a different texture. I tried to spiral the aluminium stripe, the texture created looks quite nice as if a chain. After that I rolled the whole stripe into a few layers, expanded it and changed its shape into the designed ring setting look. In addition, I tried to use double layers and wider stripe to spiral it, but it did not work well, as it is too fat, it could turn into a repetitive, regular strip. I quite like the texture of the single aluminium strip, which it further enhances the suffering life. However, it is too attractive, the attention of viewers would be led to the spiral ring setting rather than the eggshell, nevertheless, the eggshell should be the main role in the jewellery design. Because of this, I thought I should give the ring setting a simple appearance, so that the viewers would focus on the eggshell not the ring setting too much. I used a copper rod to turn it into the designed spiral ring setting to make it simple, however, I thought it is still kind of relevant again because of the spiral shape. I thought I might need to redesign the ring setting, I will look at some artists and designers who use eggs in their artwork, the method they use to hold the eggshell in their design. 

I started making model and experimented with metal, then I found the join is the biggest problem.

In the beginning, I made the steel ring by hammering it randomly with the tip, on the surface of a piece of rectangular steel sheet, the texture looks quite nice as if water wave, it symbolises the truth of life, like on the way of life, we always meet ups and downs. Then I made the egg holder by spot-welding technique, the tricky part is the join of the steel ring and the holder. I tried to stick the rods inside the gap of the steel ring, it did lock it in the place but not securely. Therefore I came up with another join method, which I could drill two holes on the steel ring and then insert the rods into it and do the spot-welding. In that, I had to open the ring, otherwise, I could not do the spot-welding, I  thought it would be hard to make it into a ring again after inserting the rods into it, but I just had a try to see if it could work. 

 I opened the ring with pliers and drilled two holes using drilling machine, I put the rods through the holes but because of the curvy shape of the ring, the rods do not fit it. I tried to do the spot-welding, the curvy surface is just not ideal to do it. I was thinking about if I could do the spot-welding on the flat steel sheet first and then make it into a ring, but I just realised if I do the spot-welding first, when I hammer it into a circular ring, the join probably would break. I tried to hammer it back into a ring, however, it was really hard to make it into a perfect ring in this situation. I thought I need to come up with another method to solve the join problem.

I put the eggshell candle on the prototype on model's finger and lighted the wick to see the effect, it is pretty attractive. However, I found out the height of the eggshell is slightly low, because I broke the edge of it a few times, the wax might easily leak out. And the circular holder is kind of thin, the eggshell is not easy to hold in the place, I might hammer this part as well to widen it. Therefore in addition to solve the join method of the ring setting, I would also make another eggshell to replace it.