Handmade with Love 2020
18th January - 7th March 2020
Our annual exhibition exploring the romance of British Craft. These talented British makers come together to showcase their beautiful handmade jewellery, ceramics and works in mixed media resulting in an array of ideal gifts for Valentine’s and Mother’s Day.
Image; Jessica Jewellery Design
Jewellery
Jo Irvine
Jo completed a degree in photography and later studied silversmithing part-time whilst working in film, fashion and portrait photography. Jo’s latest collection mixes different colour and carat golds to create a rainbow of warm colours influenced by her recent move to West Oxfordshire and the amazing sunsets, whilst the shapes and lines in her jewellery pieces continue to be inspired by city skylines and urban architecture harping back to her roots in Nottingham. Different coloured precious metals blend seamlessly from one to another where simplicity and wearable meets cool and contemporary.
Inky Linky – Liz Samways
Liz is a Yorkshire-based jeweller, enameller and printmaker, working in etched, engraved & enamelled silver and copper along with other metals. Whilst most printmakers will tell you that they often prefer the plate to the print, it was the other way round for Liz and that was the starting point for her work using printmaking techniques in jewellery. Sterling silver is combined with copper and brass, textured, etched and engraved. In addition, on some pieces, layers of vitreous enamels are used in a painterly way to add elements of colour. Liz’s work is inspired by the English landscape, her printmaking practice and training as a garden designer. The design process is intentionally spontaneous, responding to the combination, chemistry & properties of the materials she uses, and she does love a happy accident.
Catherine Woodall
Catherine initially trained as an engineer in the eighties before changing career to work in arts administration. However, her enthusiasm for science combined with the arts has led her back to the craft of jewellery making. Catherine studied jewellery and silversmithing to an advanced level at the Yorkshire Craft Centre for five years both during and following a Certificate for mature students course at Bradford College. Her work has focussed on fin-de-siecle Venice, drawing inspiration from the work of Wiener Werkstӓtte and Gustav Klimt. Natural forms also inspire her designs and produce jewellery pieces impressed with leaf textures, bezel set with dewdrops of rainbow moonstones and aquamarines. Based in West Yorkshire, she works predominantly in silver and semi-precious stones, although she has also produced gold pieces too.
Rouaida Jewellery Limited - Rouaida Boullier
Rouaida's unique designs are strongly influenced by the cultural richness of Lebanon, where she grew up amidst the high fashion and sophisticated style which are synonymous with the country’s cosmopolitan capital city. Previously available only in selected galleries and boutiques in Beirut and the luxury ski resort of Faraya, Rouaida’s jewellery designs came to the attention of a new clientele when she relocated her workshop to the UK in 2015. Following receipt of an award at her first national exhibition, Rouaida has gone on to work with many prestigious clients including the British Museum in London which has commissioned new designs to accompany a succession of public exhibitions. Now living and working in a converted mill at the foot of the Ryburn valley, Rouaida has swapped the olive groves of Mount Lebanon for the heather-clad foothills of the Pennines. As a result, she increasingly draws inspiration from the varied beauty of the rugged Yorkshire countryside surrounding the village community she now calls home. Rouaida invests herself in every piece of jewellery that she skilfully crafts by hand, lovingly combining silver and gold with semi-precious stones, diamonds and pearls into eye-catching jewellery that is as unique and individual as you are.
Jess Withington
Jess graduated from the University of Lincoln with a 1st class honours degree in Jewellery and Object design in 2013 and has since worked as a jeweller and designer for companies such as Earnest Jones and C.W. Sellers, before deciding to set up Jess Withington Jewellery in 2017. Jess is lucky to have her jewellery making business based on a nature reserve on the bank of the river Humber in rural Northern Lincolnshire. Completely surrounded by nature on a daily basis, she takes inspiration from the oyster catchers bobbing along on the humber to the sheep grazing away in the field next door. Nature and its ever changing seasons have always been a great love of Jess and she enjoys nothing more than expressing this within her jewellery designs.
Jessica Jewellery Design – Jessica Sherriff
Jessica creates a unique range of contemporary acrylic jewellery. Inspired by the colours, views and patterns of her beautiful surroundings, Jessica uses her own photographic images and displays them within the jewellery using a unique printing technique. She uses the acrylic in a variety of thickness, and combines matt and shiny surfaces to create an unusual distorted, but intriguing effect to the images. This technique allows her to create both bold and subtle colour waves and designs. She enjoys exploring the possibilities of acrylic and her enthusiasm grows the more she experiments.
Laura Creer
Yorkshire jeweller Laura creates silver and gold jewellery using a range of contemporary and traditional jewellery making techniques. The main two techniques that are used throughout her core designs are reticulation and fusing. These are heat manipulating processes that melt the surface of the silver, creating 'foil-like' patterns. The results are unique to each piece, making each one truly original, and it is this that inspires her work. Laura gets so much enjoyment making beautiful and unique pieces of jewellery, and it stems from knowing that each item differs from the next one.
Jane Sedgwick
Jane is a graduate of the Royal College of Art and taught in higher education for 13 years before moving to Norfolk to develop her practice. She makes bold, playful wooden jewellery which she hand turns and hand paints in her studio near the North Norfolk Coast. Working with geometric forms, repetition and colour, Jane’s inspiration comes from a variety of sources especially classic educational toys and nautical imagery. She uses traditional woodworking techniques and manages a small woodland which provides a sustainable supply of sycamore for her work.
Ruth Brown
Ruth is an independent jewellery designer maker from Glasgow and graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2016. She completed a year long residency at The Glasgow School of Art before relocating to Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex, where she was Hurstpierpoint College’s first Jeweller in Residence from August 2017 until July 2019. Ruth’s work takes its inspiration from the places which she inhabits. Initially, she has drawn on the sleek, linear elements of Glasgow’s architecture (the city where she grew up), and Glasgow’s Mackintosh has also had a strong influence on her work. Ruth’s work with precious metals and resin interprets the traditional concepts and forms of a looking glass, through experimentation with space and reflectivity. Reflective surfaces, along with the contrasts created by repetitions in the urban environment and the changes which accompany the movement of light against simple, linear planes provide her with a basis for visual exploration. Drawing on these investigations into distorted and fragmented reflection, shadow and space, Ruth explores illusion and perception through the sculptural frameworks of her jewellery objects. Where solid, tangible forms are reduced to transient images, the fragmentary nature of observation and understanding is depicted.
Hannah Batstone
Hannah is a contemporary jeweller based in Penryn, Cornwall. She finds inspiration in the colours and shapes of the Cornish landscape. The rugged cliffs and the rippled beaches all echo in her designs. She likes to make the kind of jewellery that she would wear herself. It’s honest and beautiful in its asymmetry, imperfection and craftsmanship. Incorporating elements of texture, and carefully chosen semi-precious gemstones into her designs each piece is handcrafted using traditional silversmithing and gem setting techniques. Hannah was recently included in a beautiful new book ‘make: CORNWALL’ a celebration of modern crafts people in the South West.
Ceramics & mixed media
Alice Funge
Producing a fully functioning vessel from a ball of clay using only a wheel and her hands is something that fascinates Alice; manipulating the clay to create any form she can is a concept she loves. Her inspiration comes from everyday marks created during our daily routines, particularly in cooking and baking. She replicates these marks in clay and coloured slip, producing a permanent feature from a temporary, mundane activity. The writing on the pieces are snippets of Alice’s late grandmother’s old recipes, which give a distinctive style and narrative to her work. Ever since she had the idea to produce a range of tableware she wanted to add something special to it; her late grandmother’s own recipes seemed the perfect idea, adding a personal touch to an already unique, handmade collection.
Vicky Higginson
Vicky’s work combines hot glass and cold-working, with glass forms hand-blown and worked into using cutting, carving and engraving techniques. She creates vessels and sculptural forms exploring the relationships between form, pattern and colour. Vicky started working with glass during her degree in 3D Design at Manchester Metropolitan University and went on to complete a Masters in Glass at the University of Sunderland in 2011. Since then she has been living and working in Edinburgh and has undertaken residencies at the University of Sunderland, North Lands Creative, Cesty Skla in the Czech Republic and Edinburgh College of Art. Vicky combines her interest in design, particularly Japanese, Scandinavian and Mid-Century, with her love of the material. Recent work has explored some of the properties of glass, working with layers of colour, pattern, texture and transparency.
Kit Anderson (Foto Ceramica)
Kit designs and creates an exquisite range of contemporary ceramic tiles and hand-built pieces, decorated with original Photographic images using her unique Gum Bi-Chromate process. With a background in exhibiting as an Arts Photographer, Kit gained an MA in Photography from De Montfort University in 2004. Drawing on this and a working life as a ceramic teacher and technician, she set up Foto Ceramica in 2006, with the aim to bring these two distinct areas of arts practice together. Kit had been developing ways in which to use photography with ceramics for many years and was featured in Paul Scott’s Ceramics and Print (1994, 1st Ed) for work using Photo emulsion, but was searching for a more permanent process. In 2007, Arts Council England awarded a Research and Development grant which enabled Kit to establish her current ceramic practice using the Gum bi-chromate process, a photography process originally used on paper which she had developed to use on bisque ceramics. Kit exposes her original and carefully sourced archival images directly onto the ceramic surface, which is then fixed by light and fired on permanently, although the photographic image is transformed having a fragile, haunting quality.
Gabrielle Turner
Erosion, texture, decay. These are just some of the elements focused on during the creation of Gabrielle’s ceramic pieces. She works with simple, contemporary forms and creates experimental glazes to not only finish the forms but to create new surfaces entirely. Taking inspiration from geological forms and surfaces Gabrielle recreates these found surfaces through combinations of experimental glazes developed by herself. Each piece is individual and is created through a combination of experimental processes including purposely overfiring glazes to discover new characteristics and manipulating the very chemistry of clay itself to get unique finishes within each piece. Within her work Gabrielle encourages the viewer’s interaction with these surfaces in ways we naturally explore our environment; by sight and touch.
Esther Smith
Based in South Cornwall, Esther takes inspiration from her beautiful natural surroundings and the goings on of coast and country. Her upbringing on the north coast of Scotland has also had a strong influence on the aesthetic qualities of her work. Esther originally trained as a jeweller at the Birmingham School of Jewellery, but in recent years has extended her range of skills to include the crafts of small scale sculpture and automata. Esther loves to tell visual stories from the world around her and from tales of long ago. The moving parts in her automata really allow her to bring the pieces to life. The automata are primarily made in silver, copper and brass. Esther also uses enamel, reclaimed tin and reclaimed or coppiced Cornish wood. Esther treats the metal with patination and oxidisation techniques to achieve turquoises, rich browns, reds and blacks. Esther also uses leaf metal applications and varnishes to seal and add lustre. Recycled tin and enamel add highlights of bright colour.
Anna-Maria Magson
After studying Fine Art in Liverpool, Anna-Marie then began working with clay. Her ceramics are inspired by the forms found in the world around her such as arid landscapes, the weathered surfaces of ancient structures and the evidence of human mark making. Working from her studio at home in York, Anna-Marie’s ceramic vessels are hand built using stoneware slabs and layers of slips. Employing wax resists and sgrafitto to create detail, surfaces are constantly reworked to achieve the desired effect. A limited colour palette and satin glaze gives a subtle finish.
Wendy Jung
Wendy has always been interested in making things, not just in ceramics, but anything; wood, paper, metal, card, beads, fabric. She is happiest pottering at home or in the garden and hates waste, hence a love of salvaging and collecting beautiful old things. Wendy lives by the sea in Hastings and has been working with clay for many years creating handmade functional objects. Almost all of her work is made using a technique called slip casting. Wendy first has an idea and then makes the necessary plaster models and moulds. Wendy loves working in white porcelain and has perfected the technique of piercing to produce unusual pierced light forms and tea light holders. She also make vases, hanging ornaments and decorations, and things for her own house.
Emma Bird
Ever since Emma can remember she has enjoyed making things. Her mum used to dread coming home when Blue Peter had been on (she knew scissors, card and sticky back plastic would be everywhere). She studied Art at Canterbury Christ Church College. Emma loves being creative, particularly working in wire to produce both 3D and 2D pieces. Her work celebrates the beauty of creation, the people and animals that she sees around her, as well as the interaction between them. Wire gives Emma the freedom to draw in the air; to her it is so intriguing to see the line hold its shape without losing a sense of flow and delicacy. She loves using the minimal amount of lines to suggest the highlights of each creation and its character. Emma works with her hands, pliers and cutters alone to create her pieces, valuing the purity of the process avoiding the temptation to solder or glue wires together.
Elizabeth Shorrock
Elizabeth is a mixed media artist specializing in the creation of handmade books. Much of her work is inspired by landscape, both that of the Lake District, where she is fortunate enough to live, and the Hebrides, Elizabeth’s preferred holiday destination. Although Elizabeth still uses recycled text and maps in some of her work combined with her own photographs she is now more involved in printing and is using a wide variety of printmaking techniques to produce new work. Elizabeth still creates sculptural artist books and a range of sketchbooks and journals but is increasingly focused on producing framed and mounted work.
Eve Campbell
Eve graduated from Textile Design at The Glasgow School of Art in 2018 where she developed an interest in creating surface pattern inspired by Scottish nature and architecture. On graduating Eve was selected for the TexSelect mentorship and also the ComON traineeship. This gave her the opportunity to exhibit her work in London and Paris and the opportunity to spend a couple of months in Italy designing at the silk mill, Taroni Spa and learning about the Como textile industry. Eve recently collaborated with the company White Stuff on their AW19 collection and has set up a print studio in Tighnabruaich on the West Coast of Scotland. From there, Eve creates textiles and ceramics, interpreting nature in abstract form for homes and spaces.
Cat Santos
After graduating from St Martins in 1982 with a degree in Fine Art, Cat worked as a fabric and T-shirt designer, printmaker and illustrator for many years. In the last ten years she has turned her hand to ceramics, bringing together her love of printmaking with the medium of clay, clay slips and oxides. She uses low-tech printmaking techniques including monoprinting, stencils and silk screen to create her images on the clay surface. Much of her work focuses around the scale between people and their environment; urban, rural and cosmic.
