A group showcase of stunning contemporary jewellery & small keepsake gift items by highly skilled and innovative makers.  Some familiar faces with established makers we've had the pleasure of working with over the past 35 years and some emerging makers premiering their work here for the first time.

 

Bronwen Tyler Jones

Brownwen studied at Birmingham School of Jewellery gaining both a BA and MA in Silversmithing and Jewellery.  Since leaving in 1996 she has been making her metalwork inventions and range of Jewellery from her workshop in Hereford.  It was the same year she began work at the Hereford College of Arts running the Jewellery workshop and over 20 years later she is still happily doing both.  Bronwen's range of metalwork inventions are a mixture of copper, brass and nickel, whilst the jewellery is produced in silver with gold detailing.  The inspirations for her pieces are taken from a diverse range of influences such as comedy, mechanical components, symbols, movement and text.  Words and narrative derived from all areas play an essential role in the thought process and construction of her pieces; one word or phrase can spark off a whole range of ideas.  More recently her children Eva and Fred have been the source of great inspiration and as a result everything is a little more rose tinted.  The processes and techniques that she uses to produce her work include etching, press-forming, patination, stamping and embossing and a lot of soldering.  Bronwen works in both precious and non-precious metals and enjoys the diversity the range of materials gives her.  Her aim is to produce pieces that can be handled or worn on a daily basis.  Each piece has a unique character that is further developed through the personality of the owner.

 

Amy Stringer

Amy was born in the South but grew up in Leeds, West Yorkshire which is where she developed her love for the countryside.  Her split heritage has played a major part in her development as a designer and her personal battle with “am I Northern or Southern?” It took her until her 20’s to realise it really didn’t matter.  Having lived in and loved both the North and South Amy began to explore her love for architecture.  The subtle differences in the buildings of each city she visited, throughout the country, and the difference between the inner hearts of cities and the countryside outskirts.  Amy moved to Sheffield in 2012 and completed a degree in Jewellery and Metalwork.  She immediately fell in love with Sheffield’s inner city combination of architecture and green space, the combination she had always subconsciously been looking for, and the fact that 20 minutes out of the city centre you could be in the stunning Peak District.  It was from this city that came her cement obsessed collections.

 

Lindsey Mann

Drawing inspiration from themes of collecting memories Lindsey creates playful jewellery which might explore a fleeting moment, a chance encounter or a material souvenir charged with meaning.  Referencing shape, form, colour and pattern to realise each piece of jewellery Lindsey hopes to create something which has both familiar and yet foreign associations, perhaps triggering a vague memory for the viewer and hopefully raising a smile.  Working from her studio in the depths of rural Wiltshire, she constructs jewellery using hand-printed anodised aluminium, precious and non-precious metals and a host of found and formed materials.  She uses a range of low-tech hand processes to create her work including screen and block printing onto anodised aluminium and traditional metalwork techniques.   Lindsey’s jewellery has visited, and emigrated, to places all around the globe and special pieces have been bought for both public and private collections.  A number of her pieces feature in books and journals and her book, ‘Coloured Aluminium Jewellery’, was published by A&C Black in 2010.  

 

Jane Muir

Jane studied ceramics for seven years achieving a first class BA Hons at Central St Martins School of Art and an MA at the Royal College of Art.  In 1997 she was awarded a Crafts Council Grant which helped her in setting up her present studio in Peckham, London.  All Jane’s work is hand-built and hand-painted using stoneware glazes and she has always been drawn to representations of the human figure.  Scale varies from small intimate pieces to large scale garden sculptures.  Inspiration comes from various sources and has remained fairly consistent throughout her career.  Fine artists such as Peter Blake, Eduardo Paolozzi and Elizabeth Frink through to more traditional crafts, such as the work of the Staffordshire Potters, have influenced her work.

 

Jane Adam

Jane Adam was born in London.  After a short career in retail management at Heal’s and Liberty’s, she studied for a degree in Wood, Metal and Ceramics at Manchester Polytechnic and an MA in Metalwork and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art.  Soon after she graduated in 1985, she set up her studio in central London.  Since then, she has concentrated full time on making jewellery, managing to combine artistic integrity, ongoing experimentation and technical innovation with a grounded sense of practical reality, to design and create ranges of jewellery that appeal to women of all ages.  Jane’s work is included in many major museum and public collections, including those of the V&A, Crafts Council, Goldsmiths’ Company, National Museums of Scotland, MIMA in Middlesbrough, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, USA.  She was a maker trustee and then co-vice chair of the Crafts Council, and a founder, vice-chair and chairman of the Association for Contemporary Jewellery, and has been involved in many committees, selection and advisory panels for the crafts and jewellery sectors.  She has taught and lectured in Portugal, India and the USA and throughout the UK, and was Research Fellow at the School of Jewellery in Birmingham from 1997 to 2001.  She has recently been appointed as a trustee of Cockpit Arts, where she had her workshop for many years before moving this year to her own studio in South-west London.

 

Betty Pepper

Betty’s work is inspired by stories, poems, overhearing conversations and memories.  Re-using materials, especially textiles, is an integral part of her work.  Betty likes to feel that they have lived a little with their own story to tell showing signs of ageing and how they have been treated or, perhaps, mistreated.  Every discarded object is a piece of the patchwork of someone else’s life.  The way in which materials (particularly textiles and garments) are carelessly discarded is a source of sadness and brings out a need to rescue.  Reminiscent of the wartime adage make do and mend.  Betty loves the way in which textiles can act as an aide-memoire and the very human quality they exude.  Her workshop is full of old scraps of fabric, lace, books and found objects waiting to be breathed new life into and Betty finds herself wondering what these sad, orphaned objects would say could they speak and weaving tales around their imagined past.