A little about Something To Do With Your Hands....
Something To Do With Your Hands was born during a fallow and difficult period in my life and spurred by a burgeoning love of collecting jewellery. I was working on a PhD in Modernist Poetry but my head needed some time off. My first training was at art college studying Fine Art, but a combination of factors had led me away from painting, and making and creating more generally. My love of jewellery led me back to these interests, reminding me of both the comfort and fulfillment that comes from creating things that appeal to the eye and stir the imagination. So, what started as a wish to fashion my own accessories has grown into a full time occupation.
Since I began making jewellery, I have always delighted in bringing together disparate and unusual components. I can't imagine I will ever tire of my love of collecting a variety of materials and items from around the world to use in my jewellery. This includes vintage components, gemstones, artisan-made beads, archaeological finds and antiques, a great variety of glass, and much, much more. I love the contrast of rough and smooth, glamour and grit, dark and light, dusty hues and pops of colour. I can't shake off my love of combining incongruous materials to make happy wholes, pieces that seem to have an inevitability to them, even though they have been formed from diverse parts.
Just over two years ago, I started to work with ceramics, again something I studied when younger. I began to make my own components to use in my designs. More recently, I have begun to develop my metalwork skills, with the aim of making my jewellery yet more individual and distinctive. I started taking silver-smithing classes just over a year ago, and I was so taken with it, I set up my own tiny metal workshop, complete with jeweller’s bench, inside a walk-in wardrobe. I've become obsessed with designing and making rings, setting beautiful cabochons in surrounds that enhance and correspond with the stone. This pursuit is, in a way, led by a different instinct to that of my other jewellery. Rather than working with a collection of varied parts, I start simply with silver sheet and silver wire (either sterling or fine silver), and the stone I wish to set. However, I’m also working on integrating my metal skills in all that I make, and on combining just the silver and ceramics in new and unique ways.
