I love nothing more than to sit at my bench and to become lost in the making of each piece.
I moved to Aotearoa from the UK in 2013, bringing my jewellery business with me. I work from my home workshop in Titahi Bay where I balance life with my wonderful partner, our two small and amazing humans, and two beautiful moggies.
Each and every piece begins and finishes within my home workshop and is therefore solely NZ made.
I still find it surprising to think that I’ve been making jewellery for nearly 20 years. But, to be brutally honest with you I really can't think what I would do if it wasn't this. I find my work such therapy...it satisfies my soul to get lost in the making of a piece and I know I'm incredibly lucky in this respect.
Throughout my life I have always been drawn to the tangible and the intricate. Working with my hands and finding ways to keep them busy has been a common theme. I remember taking things apart in my fathers work shed as a child - seeing what happened as screws were unthreaded and lids were lifted to reveal worlds of wires and complex mechanics I didn't fully understand.
It was a natural path that led me to study 3D Arts and finally Jewellery & Silversmithing in 2004, and it's really only there that my soul was soothed.
It feels good to find something that you are good at.
I love to create, but the word 'manipulate' has always been the verb that I've fixated on. Completely changing the physical properties of any given medium is to almost become a part of it; it's a romanticised version of events, sure, but this is why I say my jewellery is 'made with love'. There's truly a piece of me, my time, my vision, my dedication, in every single piece.
I create wearable pieces of work to adorn and decorate the body - this has always been my focus; keeping it simple, delicate, and beautiful whilst exploring pattern, repetition and texture.
My inspiration is borne from many places; I find it in people and in technique, in words, in nature and in man-made items. I am also incredibly persuaded by texture and am galvanized by my surrounds. Aotearoa is a rich and inspiring land; lush and diverse, wide and open and surrounded by expanses of sea. I feel unconstricted here in a way that I never did in the UK. And perhaps by that merit, those feelings are transferred to how I now create.
Maybe it's also age and maturity, but the past 10 years of life, love, and experience here in New Zealand have helped me to not only develop new aesthetics in my work, but to allow growth and encourage more understanding of the medium in which I work.
