I wanted to be an actor. I trained as a teacher, had two children, was a single parent, did lots of amateur acting met a long term partner who I still live with, found feminism (dirty word now!), worked for twenty odd years as an arts administrator during which time I did fascinating jobs such as running theatre companies both in London and Bristol setting up a small scale theatre and community arts centre in Bristol, running Birmingham Woman’s Festival. I campaigned for more money for the arts, for equality of opportunities for women, disabled people and ethnic minorities; I demonstrated against nuclear disarmaments. I got grants for people from the Arts Council of Great Britain, Local Authorities and Regional Arts Boards I did budgets, wrote reports, filled out a thousand forms. And then I went to college to do a 3 year full time degree course in Jewellery and Silversmithing. I loved the way that working with metal centred and concentrated my mind, I learnt about design and form and my teachers pushed me to develop my design ideas which I now thank them for, I loved the History of Art part of the course and became passionate about investigating the history of the involvement by women in the Arts and Crafts. This was 3 years to take stock and to create – it was a gift, and the jewellery is an outcome of that.
The Jewellery
The range of jewellery is available in silver with or without 22ct gold etch or in solid 18ct gold or platinum.
People want to know what the jewellery is about. Essentially it is about whatever it means to the person who buys/wears it.
The Inspiration
The jewellery is a synthesis of my life experience. It is about women and assertiveness (sibyis), it is about wisdom (‘wisdom of life’ triple ring set), it is about togetherness whilst being separate (‘The feeling of We’ pair of rings). It is about change (moving ring etched “This will change”). It is about the spirit in all of us ( the gold bead etched ‘the spirit’). It is about the design suiting the form, about words being ambiguous, about challenging conventional ideas both in jewellery design and in the way we organise our lives. It is about tiny precious moments (little diamonds). When you wear one of my rings etched with ‘on and on…’ it is about ‘eternity’ or ‘interminability’? It’s about not knowing and knowing……..(heavy stuff! – maybe it’s about humour?). We sung this song in the 70’s
You can’t kill the spirit
She is like a mountain
Old and Strong
She goes on and on and on
Mostly it’s about a beautifully crafted piece of jewellery which is affordable and has an intrinsic quality in both design and making.
