The icon for this section is an image of armrests. I chose this over the more ‘expected’ safety icons given that ergonomics — the safety of our physical body through its positioning — is one of the most overlooked safety issues of our times.

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• chemicals
• gases
• particles

Wear protective clothing. Wear a mask appropriate to the hazard (i.e. dust versus gas versus chemical). Wash your hands often and certainly before eating or drinking. Don’t bring food or drink into your work area. And, above all, do realize that almost everything you touch, almost everything you do while making jewellery has something that could, at the very least, be toxic to you (and any other being that comes into your space) over the long haul. There are some “safer” (“green”-er) choices that can be made. Please inform yourself about the materials, products and the alternatives that are out there and certainly about the ones that you bring close to yourself.

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• fire
• explosion
• space
• tool and material

You will cut yourself. You will file your skin. You will suffer hopefully-only-minor burns. And when you do this, please stop and care for yourself.

This sounds so obvious and I know it actually isn’t. Usually these things happen exactly when we are right in the middle of something that we are completely into. It is usually at the point where our fingers and tools and materials have just been coerced into a seemingly workable position and we haven’t got that much more to do. It is hard at this point to put everything down in order to look after ourselves… but… for the longer-than-immediate term, we really do need to do ourselves this bigger-picture service. Open or damaged skin is particularly vulnerable to particles, dust and chemicals.

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