My Work

 

Metal and stone resist time. Born from the earth and given form and function through the alchemy of fire and air, the deft blows of the jeweller’s hammer they long outlive the flesh.

Their existence begins in the hands and the eye of their maker. Through a process that finds true beauty in the marks of the process itself, the scars that tell a story, the spontaneous interplay of maker, tools and material.

A process that seeks to test the limits of the material, the points where matter and spirit become one.

A process that in creating the illusion of being reveals the elusive nature of being itself.

The capture of a delicate and singular affect that might have been lost if the process had not been halted at the precise, elusive and unrecoverable moment.

Like a revelation a design can strike the artist in an instant or, like an insight dependent on the nature of the chosen material, may require years for a final intrinsic form to crystallise. But the beauty and mystique of the final form abide.

More than a keepsake or an ornament it now becomes a talisman and a touchstone whose aesthetic draws on the wisdom and experience of generations that came before them and communicates powerfully to generations to come. It fulfils its decorative function when it ‘sits right on the body’, when (for all the practical, down to earth reasons and considerations) it feels good on the wearer’s skin. But it achieves its sacred talismanic aspirations when it becomes more than an adornment, when it speaks to the wearer’s soul and becomes an expression and an extension of the wearer’s being.

Though more durable than flesh, metal and stone are only truly brought to life when they achieve a connection, a relationship with their wearer.