North East Open Studios

NEOS starts tomorrow! The North East Open Studios event is now in it's 8th year and celebrates the wealth of creative talent across Aberdeenshire. For more information on the event visit the NEOS website.


I will have some work on display at Ruthrieston Community Centre tomorrow and Sunday 12-6pm, so if you are in the area please come along and have a look. More details including the address can be found on my exhibitions page above.

Long Absences

It has been a long time since I posted here. Where does the time go? I have been working on lots of new directions in my jewellery and learning new skills over the last year. 

Textured Lace Pendent with Labradorite

New influences include textured fabrics pressed into silver and stone setting. I also spent some time working on cast silver and hope to continue learning this skill this year.

Cast Silver Ring

Hopefully I will get better at keeping this blog updated. I am looking forward to showing you more of the jewellery I have been creating recently!

Orkney Adventures

We were in Orkney a few weeks ago for a weekend and managed to see most of the historic sites despite the weather. I know it is supposed to be summer but the persistent rain and wind made it feel more like autumn. Nevermind, we still made the most of it!

Maeshowe

Our first stop was Maeshowe, an impressive Neolithic chambered cairn built over 5,000 years ago. We also visited the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae located at the Bay of Skaill. Skara Brae is one of the best preserved prehistoric settlements in Western Europe.

Skara Brae

One of my favourite things about Orkney are the rugged beaches and rocky cliffs that surround the mainland.

Birsay Bay

The beach at Birsay Bay on the West Mainland has some great slanted, jagged rocks. It was great to watch the waves crashing over them. 

A new discovery from this trip, was the cliffs and stacks at Yesnaby. There is a great cliff top walk that leads to Yesnaby 'Castle' a rock stack that stands on its own, detached from the mainland. There are also great views towards the Island of Hoy and you can even see the other famous rock stack: 'The Old Man of Hoy' from here.

The Rock Stacks and Cliffs at Yesnaby

Another highlight of our visit were the famous standing stones of the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness. The Ring of Brodger is especially impressive with 27 of its original 60 stones still standing.

The Ring of Brodgar

The Standing Stones of Stenness

Orkney is also an Island inhabited by many talented craftspeople. I was particularly inspired by the work of Jeweller Sheila Fleet. During our trip, I was able to visit her workshop and showroom in Tankerness and see her beautiful designs cast in gold and silver and finished with colourful enamel. Many of Sheila's jewellery is inspired by the Orkney landscape and some of her collections are based on the historic sites above.

The main reason for our trip was our friends' wedding, so I couldn't not mention it! It was a beautiful day despite the rain and the setting for the ceremony was very special. The happy couple got married in St Magnus Catherdral in Kirkwall.

Centrepieces and Cupcakes

The reception was also great fun with lots of ceilidh dancing and much eating and drinking. The tables were decorated with ceramic candle holders designed and made by the Groom and the 'wedding cake' were fantastic cupcakes courtesy of our friends Eion and Craig from Kilau Coffee Shop in Aberdeen. Compliments to you boys, they were so good :)

New Washi Collection Page

I have added a Washi Collection page to the top bar of this blog. Go have a look and see some of the collection. I have also put links at the bottom of the collection page to link to my flickr gallery if you want to see more. 

There is also a link to my shop to see which pieces are currently for sale. This link is a little premature as the shop is not quite ready to launch. However, I have been working hard on it this week and it should be up and running soon... so watch this space!

More Early Work

These are a few images of one of my early Washi jewellery sets. The necklace was a learning piece focussed on joining circles and using heavier chain. I initially had some trouble soldering the piece together but quickly learned that I needed a larger/hotter blow torch for working on larger pieces.

Triple Circle Necklace

Indigo Blossom Set

The paper in this set has a rich indigo colour. It is called Aizome Chiyogami with Ai being the japanese word for indigo and Aizome meaning the art of indigo dying. It is different from my other japanese papers because it has no metallic details in the patterns.

The necklace is complemented with a pair of drop earrings using the same pattern from the indigo paper.

Washi Beginnings

I have been meaning to write this post for a while. Where does the time go? 

Teal Maple Circle Pendant

Here is one of the first Washi pieces that I made. I have always loved the intricate patterns in Japanese papers and I wanted to create a way of capturing them in a piece of jewellery. The hand printed quality of the paper, combined with the hand crafted jewellery ensures that each piece is completely unique and original. The paper is embedded in a sterling silver surround and then covered with clear resin creating a glass like finish and fully protecting the paper.

My first pieces were solid circles that beautifully show the colourful patterns of the papers. I have since expanded the collection to include pieces with cut out sections and others that combine complimentary semi-precious stones. The collection is available in many different paper designs and I am always on the look out for new chiyogami papers to add to my stock.

Holidays and Broken Laptops

Apologies for the lack of posts on here over the last month or so. There really isn't a good excuse except that my laptop screen died a death and it has taken me till now to sort myself out with a shiny new one. So hopefully I will be posting on here a bit more frequently from now on.

I have been busy in the workshop creating new work that I plan to share with you soon. I hope some of you managed to see the Aberdeen Artists exhibition in May. There was some fantastic work this year and it was a successful show for me. The pendant ended up being sold twice by accident, however this resulted in a few commissions for me so it all turned out fine in the end.

Another reason for my absence from this blog is a lot of travelling has been keeping me busy over the last few months. I recently spent some time in Greece and really enjoyed seeing the historic sites in Athens and the beautiful scenery in Santorini.

The Acropolis and The Temple of Zeus

View of Athens from Filoupappou Hill

We were in Santorini to celebrate a friend's wedding and it was a very picturesque setting. It also seems this year is the year for island weddings as we will be off to Orkney in a few weeks to celebrate another union.

The village of Oia in Santorini

The view of the Caldera and a windmill at sunset