Jewellery
My jewellery is a way of bringing together a fascination with small-scale sculpture and the challenges of discovering how to work with and combine a range of materials from the precious to the commonplace. I often carve semi-precious stones, wood or ivory to incorporate in pieces that then exist both as wearable jewels and pieces of personal sculpture. I like to use a representational element in jewellery design, imagery of natural forms realised in natural materials. For many years this approach has been a way to help the wearer to create a personal private mythology, a value that can be more emotional than monetary. I haven’t wanted to focus on jewellery that is about particularly adornment, status or fashion, though I recognise that all these approaches provide a means of demonstrating mastery of some aspect of the world or self. More recent work has carried ideas that might be seen as satirical, or have values that are more simply sculptural explorations of visual or emotional balance. It is important that each object has a presence which can be felt in relation to the body, being held or worn, as well as being displayed or stored elsewhere. It is necessary for me that the work arrives as part of a wider range of interests and media including the study of culture, larger sculpture, drawing and photography, and the teaching of sculpture and drawing.
The work shown here includes examples from the past 30 years. Some of the pieces shown may still be available for sale. Some of them were made in response to private commissions, others made as part of the work’s continual development, for sale or for specific exhibitions. It is rare that I can repeat a piece, rather they go in series of stages or variations of an idea.
(All ivory used is old, recycled.)