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Made with Love

13th January - 10th March 2018

These talented makers come together to showcase their beautiful jewellery, ceramics and works in mixed media resulting in an array of ideal gifts for Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. 

Image: Hanne Mannheimer.  Photography credit Dominic Tchudin.

Jewellery

 

Annabet Wyndham

Annabet’s metal of choice has always been silver.  Using uncomplicated shapes and techniques of construction Annabet enjoys making small tactile pieces. Texture, perforation and geometry play a large part the mixed metal jewellery that she makes.  In 2003 Annabet completed a residency in Australia, which gave her invaluable time to explore new ideas and techniques.  On Annabet’s return she continued to use torch fired enamelling and wire construction, both techniques she started to experiment with on the trip.

 

Emma Leonard

Emma Leonard is based near the Bournemouth seaside in Westbourne, Dorset.  She makes jewellery that combines natural influences and pattern with clean, considered lines to create a range of striking, individual and wearable designs.  

 

Claire Gent

Claire designs and makes contemporary jewellery from her home workshop on the edge of Dartmoor.  Clare produces several ranges; some in sterling silver, some in anodised aluminium, and some combining both.  Clare's inspiration comes from many sources; living on the edge of Dartmoor means flora and fauna feature massively in her designs.  

 

Carla Edwards

Carla designs and makes contemporary jewellery from her workshop in Leith, Edinburgh.  Inspiration comes from a love of the natural world, pattern, colour and drawing.  The small details of plants fascinate Carla and she enjoys translating elements of drawings into wearable jewellery.  Pieces are influenced by sketches from her garden, walks in the woods and the famous Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh.  Carla combines playful shapes and colour to make quirky, often asymmetric necklaces, brooches and earrings.  Using pattern and repetition of small resin and wire shapes within larger forms creates layers of interest.  She contrasts these areas of pattern with bold simple forms of solid colour.  Resin is used in the jewellery because of the range of colour, pattern, translucency, form and finish that can be achieved with the material.  Aluminium leaf, gold leaf, silver and 18ct gold are used to compliment.  Techniques used are mould making, casting, filing, carving and polishing resin.  These are alongside traditional metalworking techniques such as soldering, piercing and hammering.

 

Beverly Bartlett

Beverly designs and makes all her jewellery by hand at her workshop in Berkshire.  Her first degree was in Biology and this has had a real influence as a source of inspiration on her work with elegant designs reflecting natural biological objects as they appear under the microscope.  Working mostly in silver, her pieces feature unique textured surfaces (highlighted by the process of depletion gilding) combined with contrasting polished elements.  Having a science background assists in the design process as understanding how metals behave when worked helps Bev to shape and form the silver.

 

Sara Buk

Sara’s ‘Sewn-Up’ range was created when she bought a basketful of embroidery threads from a charity shop, so many colours, and many of them vintage.  She wanted to incorporate them into her jewellery, to add colour and texture to her designs.  Sara also had a collection of pebbles gathered from many beaches over many years.  She used to pick up the ones with a white line of quartz running through them.  Childhood memories are echoed within her designs.  The ‘Sewn-Up’ collection was the outcome of these two ideas, pebble shaped pieces with coloured quartz stiches.  The silver discs are embossed with a sandpaper texture, created using traditional techniques.

 

Izabela Motyl

Izabela creates unique and one-of-a-kind jewellery, mostly tangled and crocheted.  The most distinctive feature about her pieces is their delicacy and lightness.  Born in Poland, with her mum sewing beautiful original clothes, grandma teaching her to knit and crochet, always helping grandad in the garden, Izabela finds the beauty in every detail.  She collects antique lace where most of her inspiration comes from.  Her jewellery has been made using carefully chosen gemstones and colours, hand forged shapes and elements create mystical feel to all her pieces.

 

Josephine Gomersall

Josephine is a designer maker of contemporary jewellery and objects, based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.  Her work explores notions of fragility, preciousness and impermanence in nature.  She seeks inspiration from the miniature details from the flora and landscape of the British Isles.  Making jewel-like found object and natural material collections and drawings as part of her creative process to inform her jewellery making, Josephine uses the found botanical details in a new context to create beautiful and useful pieces to wear and treasure, creating keepsakes using imprinting techniques to capture the essence of the ephemeral botanical specimens.  The work is intended to draw attention to the importance of connectedness to nature.  Josephine's use of tranquil colours are intended to be reminiscent of those found in nature, aiming to create a sense of balance and harmony in her work, to symbolise a healthy relationship with the botanical environment and it's therapeutic benefits for health and wellbeing.

 

Natalie Vardey

Natalie’s grandmother taught her to crochet when she was very small, she also taught her the art of fine sewing and embroidery.  Meanwhile her mother also taught her to knit and gave her free rein with scissors and needles.  Natalie would crochet miniscule pieces using sewing thread and make all sorts of things for her appreciative family.  Now, many years on, Natalie often thinks how lucky she is to be knitting, crocheting and weaving with precious metal, using these traditional skills to make pieces for other people to treasure and keep.  She is a classically trained and versatile jeweller having studied at Sir John Cass in London.  She has many different collections, and working with fine (pure) silver and freshwater pearls is one of Natalie’s real pleasures.

 

Emily Glidden

A magpie at heart, Emily reveals the beauty in everyday experience; found objects nostalgic elements and natural shapes are reworked into captivating modern jewels.  Working with silver, gold and precious stones, Emily uses traditional metalworking skills alongside etching and embossing to explore surface textures and natural forms.  A respect for craft practices, a love of storytelling and a keen eye for decorative details are combined to create a sensual and subtle range which resonates with human appeal.  Inspired by the materials at hand and traditional jewellery process, she exploring surface decoration, composition and simple forms to produce delicately etched, wearable jewellery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ceramics

 

Áine McKenna

Áine McKenna is a ceramic designermaker, based in Northern Ireland specialising in illustrated ceramics.  Having recently completed a two year residency in Down Art Centre as part of Craft NI’s Making It programme, Áine makes contemporary, decorative giftware and luxury items for the home.   Following a degree in Fine and Applied art from University if Ulster Áine went on to do a Masters in Ceramic Design at Staffordshire University in the heart of the potteries, Stoke on Trent.  After graduation she went on to work for Royal Stafford/Poole pottery as a surface pattern designer.  Áine currently creates stunning translucent objects and vessels from porcelain paper clay, intended to look like paper.  The range includes Sketchbook vessels, in sizes of A3, A4 and A5, these are reminiscent of pages from a sketchbook and the surface is adorned with her illustration applied with ceramic decal.  The use of paper clay allows for the pieces to be thin and appear delicate while retaining strength.   Each piece is a work of art, beautiful and delicate.  The process for creating these designs is highly skilful and time consuming and with so much attention to detail, it's easy to see the value in each piece. 

 

Karen Howarth

Since completing an MA at the Royal College of Art in London in 1996 Karen has divided her time between teaching, raising a family and continuing to make.  Karen has taught across the UK to adults, degree students and young children.  Currently working from her purpose built studio in the garden she produces one-off ceramic work for exhibitions and galleries.  Karen’s work is inspired by her love of nature and the outdoors; the lines and patterns within the landscape, the texture of grasses against a stormy grey sky, the subtle variation in colour of a vast open seascape.  Wall pieces and tiles have been the vehicle for her exploration of colour and texture for some time now.  Recent additions to this comes in the shape of thrown bowls, vessel forms and jewellery which complement and broaden the range of work Karen offers.

 

Abigail Leach

Abigail studied for a BA (Hons) in 3D Design, Wood, Metal, Ceramics & Glass at Manchester Metropolitan University and specialised in Ceramics and Wood.  After university, ceramics became her main field of practice but she is also an experienced qualified teacher and taught Art & Design at secondary schools for 15 years.  Abigail uses an Earthenware Terracotta clay to hand build a range of domestic ware, adding bespoke slips for colour and decoration.  Some work is fully glazed to make the coloured slips pop, or partly glazed with a transparent glaze to leave some raw matt areas of terracotta to contrast against areas of glossy colour.  Abigail predominantly builds using slabs and specially constructed moulds and formers.  It can be slow and sometimes labour intensive but she enjoys the challenge of forming and shaping the clay.  Abigail is particularly interested in texture, colour, form and function.   Abigail enjoys challenging the boundaries between the functional and the sculptural but intends that her work should be used every day and be fit for purpose. 

 

Hanne Mannheimer

Hanne first encountered clay at Mullsjo Folkhogskola, Sweden, where she did what would be similar to a two-year foundation.  Most of her time there was spent on the throwing wheel making decorative and functional ware.  Hanne is Swedish by birth but has lived in the UK since 1999 when she moved here for her first degree in Ceramics at Bath Spa University College.  More often than not, Hanne’s work begins with a found object, like an old school document or the memory of a porcelain figurine.  Sometimes the found can be a story, even a few words describing something or a feeling that needs to be made in a tactile and fragile material; clay. The combination of the found and made, a tangible object and an abstract idea is what motivates Hanne the most.  Hanne’s work ranges from ceramic press moulded vessels and plates, found object sculptures right through to to drawings and collages, raw clay paintings and mixed media installations.  Hanne has been running her own business since 2003, supporting herself through residencies mainly in the North of England and Scotland, teaching and selling her work both nationally and internationally.  She completed a Masters of Arts at the Royal College in London in 2010 and set up Studio Manifold in East London with eight other maker designers.

 

Lisa Katzenstein

Lisa’s pieces are slip-cast or press moulded white earthenware with hand painted tin-glaze decoration.  In this technique you paint on top of the glaze prior to firing.  This has a long history in Europe; originally it was developed to imitate Chinese porcelain, and the ware was called by different names depending on where it was made.  It was known as 'Majolica' (or 'Maolica') in Spain and Italy, 'Faience' in France and 'Deft' in Holland.  Lisa uses wax resist and Scraffitto techniques that inlay the colours of the lines of her design, as in etching.  Lisa sees her pots as paintings which also happen to be functional vases.

 

Ali Tomlin

Ali’s work is made from porcelain and is individually wheel thrown.  Most pieces are glazed only on the inside and sanded on other surfaces to achieve a soft, tactile finish.  Ali likes to leave some of the porcelain white, giving her a clean canvas to play with marks, lines and texture.  Even though they appear fragile, everything can be used.

 

Rachel Thornton

Rachel lives and works in the rural North Yorkshire town of High Bentham.  She graduated from a Fine Arts Degree in 2013 where she was awarded with a First.  During her studies she exhibited worldwide and had work accepted into exhibitions such as the Wrexham International Print Exhibition which toured the UK. She was awarded with the ArtLab Fellowship Award for her degree show, this was well received as it allowed her free access to the universities print studio for a year after graduation.  Rachel now works with ambitious and experimental printmaking methods to create unique pieces that engage the imagination. Her illustrative style translates seamlessly into print methods. Rachel continuously experiments and expands on the methods and materials she uses. This love for experimentation has brought forth her own unique ways of creating, this in turn allows her to develop a unique style and form. Combining printmaking, painting and wood carving methods to create one off natural artworks.

 

Helen Kemp

Helen is inspired by Victorian Staffordshire pottery, North and South American folk art, and Latin American magic realism.  She is constantly developing themes, with one unique piece leading to another in her distinctive individual style.  She hand-models in earthenware and uses underglaze colour and scraffito technique with transparent glazes. Helen was born in Falkirk, Scotland and studied ceramics at Edinburgh College of Art followed by Post-Graduate study of slip-cast work at Glasgow School of Art.  She lives and works in the Scottish Borders, and exhibits in galleries in Scotland and England.  Her range includes wall sconces, candlesticks, bowls, plates and decorative pieces.  

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