Sunday 30 November 2014

Blog Hop

I have been asked to take part in this Blog Hop by my cousin's lovely wife Juliet Macleod. Juliet set up her studio, The Cloud Pottery only last year after a career in graphic design and has applied her creativity and attention to detail to wonderful effect
Slipware pot by Juliet Macleod

Through the Blog Hop each artist or maker is asked to answer four questions then request the same of two new artists or makers and so it continues…

WHAT AM I WORKING ON?
My main focus right now is stock for Christmas but I am also starting to look ahead to the next year. I plan to expand my range of wedding and engagement rings to include eternity bands so I am currently sourcing stones and working on test pieces. 


Works in progress and odds and ends on my workbench

HOW DOES MY WORK DIFFER FROM OTHERS OF ITS GENRE?
I hope that everyone within contemporary jewellery strives to be different from each other, that's what it's all about. When you are designing and hand crafting objects you incorporate a little piece of yourself into every piece. In my work I try to achieve a sense of balance using and being influenced by found and made elements.

WHY DO I DO WHAT I DO?
First of all I am most comfortable working on a small scale, ask me to paint a room and I would fail miserably, I just get bogged down in all the tiny details. But more than that, there are so many elements to jewellery that excite me. I love that something so tiny can be so precious, not just in its intrinsic value, heirlooms become charged with meaning when passed from generation to generation. As soon as I sell a piece of jewellery my connection with it is severed as it starts it's own life perhaps being worn every day and becoming part of someone's identity. This is such an honour. 


HOW DOES MY PROCESS WORK?
I used to design in my sketchbook but shamefully I don't make time for it any more, now my process is more bench based. My ideas form from curios I come across and collect. I love a car boot sale, flea market, or museum. On my messy work bench bits and bobs find each other and trigger design ideas. I often live with a tiny found treasure for years before it finds it's home in a special piece of jewellery. For example the tiny mother of pearl button at the centre of my Catkin Wreath Brooch had been stuck to my soldering hearth for ten years before it found its home. 


So now to pass the baton... I am nominating my friends Bridget Farmer and Ashley and Ian from SodaKitsch.

Bridget Farmer and I studied Jewellery and Silversmithing together at Edinburgh College of Art but Bridget has taken a different direction in her choice of home and medium, She now works as a printmaker in southern Australia.


Ian Dunlop and Ashley Jassiman collaborate to create gorgeous leather bags with screen printed interiors for their SodaKitsch label. They have just launched their online shop which I spend many an hour drooling over.