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Take a step back into your childhood and join us in a celebration of all things feel-good.  This show explores makers who produce contemporary jewellery which is not only visually playful but through which you can see the joy of making.  The carefully curated show highlights a selection of talented UK based makers who come together to explore their craft in a playful, naïve and imaginative way.

Image:Yuka Jourdain

Playful Jewellery 2020

7th November 2020 - 19th June 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gwyneth Williamson

Gwyneth’s jewellery is made from silver, copper, brass and occasionally gold. She recently became a member of the Art House in Wakefield and refreshed her print making skills which sparked her exploration using wood, paint and print in her pieces, with the added bonus of bringing colour to her work. Using linocut patterns and the off-cut shapes left over from Gwyn’s laser-cut wood, she mono-print patterns onto the plywood, layering and playing until she likes what she sees. Gwyneth works in an intuitive way and never really knows what patterns and textures will emerge. Each piece is unique due to the mono-print technique. All wood is sealed using Renaissance wax to protect it.

 

Yuka Jourdain

Yuka creates mixed media jewellery in a colourful contemporary style. Each piece is unique and intricately hand crafted to achieve a wearable, comfortable and stylish piece of art.Born and raised in Japan, Yuka has lived in France and now resides in Derbyshire's High Peak. Multi-cultural experiences and encounters are reflected in her work as are her surroundings.
Her inspiration cones from the intricate details of natural forms collected at weekend walks, and patterns of interest found in the course of daily life. She captures visual images as well as emotional responses to translate into her works. Yuka's new range of work uses aluminium with sublimated designs inspired by memories from every year of her life. The marks and patterns from her story developed in an aluminium range have been added to the original mixed media wool jewellery.

 

Sadie Blythin

Sadie’s jewellery takes inspiration from art, music and fashion, blurring the boundaries of those disciplines and exploring the notion of - what is jewellery?
She aspires to create an eclectic body of work that combines a love of colour, material processes and design. Working primarily with paper, like an alchemist I aim to turn the ordinary into something extraordinary. These ideas are reflected in my designs and then translated into unique, tactile, beautiful objects. Every individual piece undergoes a special laminating process and is hand carved and wax finished.

 

Nick Hubbard Jewellery

For nearly forty years, the family-run business has been making jewellery known for its craftsmanship and story telling. Citing influences from comic art, literature, music and nature, Nick's work led the way for fine jewellery featuring figurative detail and mechanized parts. After graduating from Birmingham School of Jewellery in 1978, husband and wife team, Nick and Jean established their business from a small workshop in Birmingham's historic Jewellery Quarter. After working for several years as a silversmith for the trade, Nick continued his love of miniaturisation to produce his first collection in the early 1990s and so the magical world of Nick Hubbard Jewellery began! Since losing our beloved Nick in 2013, we (wife Jean, daughters Philippa and Elizabeth and a wonderful team of talented jewellers who worked closely with Nick) have been dedicated to preserving and continuing his creative legacy.  We continue to lovingly handcraft jewellery from our workshop in Staffordshire using traditional jewellery-making methods. Working with Nick's drawings, designs and processes ensures that every piece is imbued with his distinctive style and skill that has set the standard for finely crafted, playful contemporary jewellery.

 

Emily Collins

After studying for an MA in Silversmithing and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art in 2000 Emily went on to work at the internationally renowned Electrum Gallery in London. She now lives and works in leafy Hampshire with her husband and two children. Making is Emily’s joy, her passion and her craft. She uses it as a way to explore ideas and embrace concepts as she sees them. Ideas of lightness, simplicity, value, harmony, balance, purity and order. Through considered composition and meditative repetition of gently framed tiny elements and shapes. Over time, within Emily’s practice, she has developed and created a range of jewellery that uses a combination of 999 and 925 silver alloys. Also known as fine and sterling silver. This is a carefully considered selection, unique to my work. Using each alloy's inherent attributes means that each piece will have both the strength and durability of sterling silver as well as the pure brilliant whiteness of fine silver that almost glitters in the light.

 

Hannah Hayhurst

Hannah Hayhurst jewellery is handcrafted in fine silver wire, using simple and traditional silversmithing techniques. The malleability and purity of fine silver allows the wire to be intricately knotted, these elements gradually build up a texture which subtly reflects the light and moves with the wearer. The rhythmic and repetitive style of making allows each piece to naturally develop into its own individual design.

 

Charlie High

From an early age Charlie was attracted to jewellery. She collected stones, shells and pieces of metal. Charlie started to make jewellery in Portugal where she studied a summer course in jewellery design and basic techniques. On her return to the UK she studies at Kensington and Chelsea College and was then offered a place at the Guildhall to study for an HND. The underlying link between all of Charlie's pieces is the influence of her environment. Many of them have an organic origin, adapted to be workshop practical and wearable as a piece of jewellery.

In some instances she has focused on the texture of natural objects and in others she has concentrated on the pattern or the shape. Shells, leaves, flowers and pebbles have been particularly influential, as well as landscapes, building and other man-made objects. Even the feelings aroused by an object, place or an event have a part to play in her design.

 

Adele Taylor

Adele makes contemporary jewellery and small objects using silver and 18ct gold and precious stones. She values practical hand making skills in the creation of her designs and enjoys letting the material influence and, to some extent, dictate how the pieces of work evolve during production. Adele has become increasingly interested in pattern and texture as a result of a recent trip to Iceland where she found the linear texture and patterns in the vastness of the dramatic volcanic landscape very inspiring and much of her work since then has been expanding and exploring landscape ideas. The Icelandic colour pallet also suited her well as she was drawn to the muted colours and was struck by the similarity of these colours to the subtle and gentle colours which occur in metals and precious stones. Also, as part of Adele’s recent exploration of landscape, she has been developing a series of pieces which are a combination of 2D mixed media work created to include small pieces of 3D precious metal jewellery work which occupy their own places in the landscape. She works from her studio in Sheffield and also teaches small groups practical jewellery making where she helps them to develop their own creativity which forms and this forms an integral part of Adele’s own creative process.

 

Nettie Birch

Nettie is a self-taught jeweller and metalsmith who, after redundancy in 2008 started her full time business, Ng Jewellery. She discovered fold-forming in 2009 and, after a year perfecting the technique, changed the focus of her work to concentrate solely on the discipline. The joy of fold forming, for Nettie, is watching the metal move and allowing unexpected movements to define new directions. Often the resulting shapes need careful consideration as to how to make into wearable jewellery and engineering new connections is all part of the challenge.

 

Freya Alder

Freya is a designer, maker and jeweller based in Glasgow. Her work tends to be informal, relatively un-precious and playful. She recently graduated from the design school at Glasgow School of art specialising in silversmithing and jewellery. The idea for her latest collection originally sprang from her love of illustrating the female form. She enjoy the long linear lines that so quickly represent a woman. With five strokes of a pen, one can conjure a form and a character within. The subject of the nude woman is fraught with conflicts. The female form is often reductively objectified and generally devalued. I want my work to have a humour and an informality that isn't often afforded to the subject of the naked women or indeed the discipline of jewellery.

 

 

 

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