What made you start?

What made you start?

It’s a question I’m often asked.

I am a do-er. I’ll blame it on my father as he was an engineer and his favourite place to be was in the garage re-building an engine. To him the V-8 engine was a thing of beauty and the greatest invention. I have very early memories of sitting in cars and pushing the brake pedal to bleed brakes with him, I thought all dads smelt of petrol and engine cleaner.

I’d had a career meeting at school at 16 and didn’t fancy either nursing or secretarial work as my working future, so I was open to other ideas. I heard about a local jewellery maker who was looking for somebody to do some simple repair work for him so thought that sounded a bit different and went to see him. He took me on under one of the work schemes that paid £20ish a week and 40+ years later I am still enjoying making jewellery.

My boss was self-taught and would often open Oppi Untracht’s book and decide what he was going to make that day using the chosen technique. We had workbenches close together, so I could watch what he was doing then go and have a go myself, the best way to learn. Also, we would adapt techniques too depending on what we had got to hand and if it worked then we kept doing it that way. Silver then was very cheap so I was lucky to have the opportunity to learn to work it. Sawing, filing, bending, soldering, getting used to what you could do with it before disaster struck. If there were any disasters it just went into the scrap pot to be re-used at a later date. I also spent months cleaning up castings which is a thankless and painful task as fingertips bled to begin with. After a short time the skin hardens up so it gets less painful and again I was working the metal. Possibly the most important part of jewellery making is the final finishing. The most beautiful piece can be spoilt by poor polishing. There are no short cuts really to this so again valuable lessons and techniques learned.

I think because I began in a free-wheeling making environment it must be why I enjoy making a range of different work as that’s what I got used to doing. I enjoy the precision of the Celtic patterns and the sawing work but also the twisting and bending of the wirework rings and bangles. The occasional enamel work and a good soldering session is fun too. If truth be told I enjoy it all and can bore for Britain on the subject!

More random thoughts will follow here regularly so I hope you’ll call back and have a look………