Cola-Cola Plastic

 Melting Coca-Cola Caps

Cola-Cola caps are still amongst the best plastic to be used on my projects, the cherry red contrast has more accessible elements on a jewellery piece like the PlatAfrica bangle. I have provided some pictures to show how the cherry red plastic is achieved when melting Cola-Cola caps inside the oven kiln seen in figure 1.

Figure 1 - Mbeje A. 2020. raw plastic oxidized plastic. Cola-Cola  melted caps, 

Figure 2 - Mbeje A. 2020 raw plastic. Cola-Cola Caps prints, 

If you melting plastic caps at the correct temperature at the oven kiln, you will see the printing of Cola-Cola in the plastic mold as seen in figure 2. Cola-Cola Caps are made of HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene). I have been testing plastic caps for months and I have found that coke bottle caps are melting at a great temperature of 200 to 231c. however, if the plastic is melted inside the mold as seen in figure 1, it does not get enough air to start to oxidize.

Non-precious materials

Figure 1 - Murphy. K. 2001. Bangles. Resin (blue and green), Fabric and Foil

Non-precious materials can be chartered as cheap materials or non-precious, due to the long history of precious jewellery in the western world, traditional materials were combined with the perceived intrinsic value. The rise of art- jewellery with non-precious materials has changed the innovation of jewellery, as well as materials such as recycling materials, refractory metal and changes in education. These changes have adopted a new personal concept for art-jewellers, as they are able to express their own creativity in contemporary art-jewellery.

Non-precious materials have paved the way for Kathie Murphy, who is using plastic resin for her art-jewellery as a way of making art-jewellery cheaper, richer with colour and patterns as seen in figure 1. Kathie's art-jewellery has inspired me, to use her techniques on my art-jewellery work by applying a clear resin material to create decorative transparency on my jewellery pieces.

Value of jewellery

Figure 1 - Rings. Resin and Gold flakes

Today, high precious jewellery pieces are not made to be worn like everyday wear jewellery, according to the Virtual Gallery of Contemporary Jewellery states that "since the true nature of latter is more clearly revealed than has usually been the case before, it could be argued that the role of the precious as an enhancer of value is greater than ever", but the economic recession which has affected the impacts of luxury lifestyle and investment. Non-materials jewellery has become the new trend of value of jewellery in the 21st century as seen in figure 1.