Enamelled seed pod pendant

I work in my studio in a converted basement in our Victorian house, surrounded by a beautiful garden and allotments. I make handcrafted jewellery, tabletop sculpture and enamelled wall panels, using silver, gold, mokume gane and enamels. My favourite enamelling technique is scraffito, a method where I put down lots of layers of different colours and scratch back into each layer.

Nature has always been a great inspiration to me. My two favourite places are Dunham Massey (a local National Trust country park) and the Lake District. I love seed pods and they are what I call nature’s containers. I also have a love of trees, flowers and pollen, I feel a strong connection with nature.

I want to make forms that people want to look inside of, so the inside and the outside are equally important. I explore surface texture and colour, the edges of things and the junctions, the feeling of the crease, an open vessel or a pod - something precious that holds something even more precious.

I develop a different visual language for each medium I use because I like the diversity and challenge of working different materials. I really want my pieces to be tactile. I think that people not being able to resist touching my work is one of the most important elements for me. It is the greatest compliment I could receive.

I have always been creative and can’t remember a time in my life when I haven’t been involved in some craft based activity. I loved sewing at primary school and moved on to ceramics at college. Later, I completed a City & Guilds course in embroidery and subsequently joined a textile group – Ten Plus Textiles.

In 2006 I graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University having achieved a first class honours degree in Three Dimensional Design.

As well as designing and making jewellery I teach enamelling and art techniques at an art centre for adults with mental health difficulties, which I love. I am also available to teach a variety of other workshops in paper making, textile techniques, manipulating fabric, arty papers, embroidery and jewellery techniques.

The way I package and tell my story is very important. The bangles I make, which have poetry written on the inside of them, may only have a fragment of the poem yet the box will contain the whole poem written on tracing paper curled up inside the bangle. In this way the wearer can have an intimate relationship that transcends the simple object.

The shape of this particular pendant is inspired by broad beans I have grown in the garden. It was made in two halves, each shape being press-formed on the fly press. The different sized holes were then drilled into both sides. Before soldering the two halves together, I enamelled the inside with yellow enamel so the brightness of the colour would be seen from the outside. Once the two sides were soldered, filed, sanded and cleaned I enamelled the outside with clear enamel, making sure that some of the holes were filled and some left open.