Rose Wood

Image courtesy of Rose Wood

In conjunction with Oriel Myrddin Gallery's exhibition Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft, currently touring from The Craft Council, west Wales based accessories designer, Rose Wood will be showing a range of her laser cut leather jewellery in the gallery shop.

Rose works with laser cut components, slicing and slotting flat shapes to build into sculptural jewellery. Working predominantly in leather and textiles she enjoys the tactility of the making process. 

The jewellery pieces are made from soft leather and have a gestural, performative element to their design, they are sensuous in their physicality and designed to be enjoyed and experienced as tactile objects. 

Rose has also designed intriguing folded textiles that act as sculptural garments and performance pieces.

Untitled from rose wood on Vimeo.

Collect: The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects

Stephen Bird - War on Pottery - seen here

I went back for a proper look around at Collect on Saturday, it's a real treat to see so much top quality work in one venue, I really enjoy the international aspect of the fair. Jewellery had a strong presence this year along with ceramics; textiles generally seem to be less well represented, however two Fibre Arts Wales members were showing, Laura Thomas with Ruthin Craft Centre and Michelle Griffiths with Lesley Craze Gallery. I was also delighted to find some pieces by ceramicist, Stephen Bird at the Bluecoat Display Centre stand.

Bettina Speckner - seen here

I really like Galerie Ra and Galerie Marzee, both Dutch based jewellery specialists. At Galerie Ra I made my (purely) fantasy purchase - a brooch from Bettina Speckner! Gallerie Marzee have a plan chest alongside their main display full of exquisite pieces from their gallery artists.

Galerie Marzee at Collect 2011 - seen here

Anna Lewis

Anna Lewis' studio - seen here

Anna Lewis - Myth series - seen here

I went to visit jeweller Anna Lewis in her Swansea studio yesterday. Anna is one of the makers showing with Oriel Myrddin Gallery in our winter show, LUX. We had a look at some of her new work, lovely one-off pieces using found and salvaged objects and jewellery. We've chosen a collection of work that will compliment the pieces we'll be showing from London designers James Plumb - and serendipitously, it turned out that they had already worked with Anna on a photographic shoot recently! Anna has been involved with styling and production projects recently along with collaborator, fashion photographer Elliot Davies - together they are called Seven Everything. 

Anna Lewis/Elliot Davies - Pica Pica - seen here

Anna Lewis/Elliot Davies - The Hunted - seen here

Anna Lewis/Elliot Davies - Fragmentation - seen here

Origin - The London Craft Fair

Day two at Origin, and a closer look at the show, here's more images of makers whose work I enjoyed...

Nuntaka Nopkhun - seen here

SaPetra - seen here

Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak

We went to the National Botanic Gardens of Wales on Thursday. The current show in the gallery Delicate Balance is by jeweller, Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak. Carol exhibited with Oriel Myrddin Gallery in 2009 as part of Crafted: Contemporary Craft and Fine Art.

There is a particular poignancy to Carol showing in this space as she previously lived in the courtyard of Middleton Hall before it became the National Botanic Gardens in 2000. The show includes a comprehensive collection of work including drawings and prints as well as some quite conceptual images based on a historical collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Carol's work takes "...unorthodox materials and traditional techniques to draw attention to our idea of what is precious..."

Crafts curator, Ralph Turner has said of the work: " Carol Gwizdak's Jewellery focuses on ecological issues that draw on the visual and conceptual language of the natural world and in so doing reinstates nature in its purist form as the most precious of all commodities."

The fact that much of it is displayed under glass domes like a rare Victorian collection; that the natural objects incorporated into the pieces are held in stasis, impotently isolated from the natural environment, colourless; I was struck by the dark undercurrents to the work. There is something slightly horrific, slightly romantic, slightly Gothic; and the setting of the Botanic Gardens and its historical legacy added to the feeling.

Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak - Valued

A new series of framed works Valued, are based on the Bollinger collection of diamond necklaces in the V&A Museum. The pieces are made from burrs which are held in place on a background of wool fabric as a "...metaphor for society's dependence on wealth and status."

Milkwood Gallery

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Butterfly Charm

I am exhibiting with textile designer and artist Louise West at the Milkwood Gallery in Roath, Cardiff from 4 March - 10 April 2010. I'll be showing my new jewellery pieces alongside some other recent work.

Louise West - Magpie - seen here

A Winter's Tale - Oriel Myrddin Gallery

Oriel Myrddin Gallery - A Winter's Tale

The winter show has opened at Oriel Myrddin Gallery, called A Winter's Tale, it features artists and makers who use ideas of story and narrative in their work. I feel very privileged that I was asked to contribute some work. I am showing a small series of works on paper and a new collection of recently made jewellery.

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Hoodie 3

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Charm for the Good Red Road

My favourite pieces in the show are from North Wales based artist, Steffan Jones-Hughes. I am totally enchanted by his Memento series of prints within mussel shells, such a beautiful concept. I've bought a series of three for an early Christmas present.

Steffan Jones-Hughes - Mussel Memento - photo: Steffan Jones-Hughes

Katy Nicola Moloney, a Swansea based jeweller, is also showing and I really like her narrative/domestic pieces. If I could chose, I'd have this lovely copper and enamel Welsh dresser brooch. I also like the humour of her plate and dome rings.

Katy Nicola Moloney - A Very Welsh Dresser - seen here

Katy Nicola Moloney - Just a Slice and After Dinner rings - seen here

Origin: The London Craft Show (part 2)

Grace Girvan - pebble brooch

On Tuesday morning we visited part 2 of Origin at Somerset House. It was the start of the week for the exhibitors so everyone was feeling chipper! I was very pleased to find some of my favourite jewellers there.

Grace Girvan - Pebble bangle

Scot, Grace Girvan showed her pebble and silver pieces, I believe the pebbles are from the Orkney's. I absolutely loved this piece which was also styled as a brooch. There is a pebble in each of the silver settings, on either face of the piece - as a brooch it is designed to have a secret stone which is worn next to the wearer's clothes. Grace was trained in Edinburgh, alongside so many of the very best jewellers currently working.

Beth Legg is another Edinburgh alumni, I had not seen her work in the flesh before and it was much finer and more beautiful than I had realised.

Beth Legg - Six Whins Neckpiece - seen here

We also enjoyed seeing Ruth Tomlinson's exquisite Encrustation and Hoard collections, delicate and weathered, as though recovered from a shipwreck or an archaeological dig.

Ruth Tomlinson - Encrustation collection - seen here

Anna Lorich Jewellery

Anna Lorich - Pillow Rings - seen here

I like these rings by American Jeweller, Anna Lorich. Her work has a freshness about it, a sense of innate authorship. She states that her practice is an exploration of her emotions and identity; she views her pieces as keepsakes or mementos of that process. There's a hint of irreverence about the work which brings a lightness of touch to her craftsmanship. It's a difficult modern conundrum that visual work is required to justify itself with a 'statement' of the artist's intent. It feels like these pieces are part of an instinctive process - a visceral thing; not a word thing.


'Narrative' has become a very well used phrase recently, but these pieces really do feel like they are shaped by, and integral to the maker's experience. They are not illustrative of the story, they ARE the story. In this sense they naturally straddle the art/craft divide.



Anna Lorich - 'Ring Family' Group Shot - seen here

Djurdjica Kesic

Djurdjica Kesic - Transition - seen here

I found out about this maker today. Djurdjica Kesic makes jewellery and crafted objects, born in Yugoslavia she is now based in Australia. I really like her series of work from 2008 called Transition. Conceptually succinct and articulate (deconstruction/process/re-appropriation) the images on her website tell the story beautifully.


Djurdjica Kesic - Transition - seen here

Bettina Speckner

Bettina Speckner - Posting seen here

I've had the work of German jeweller, Bettina Speckner in my mind recently. I saw some pieces in the flesh earlier in the year on Galerie ra's stand at Collect: The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects held in Saatchi's new King's Road Gallery in the old Duke of York's HQ in Chelsea. Mostly, I have seen her work online only - which is a handicap, tactile, 3d objects rendered into two dimensions remove them from their function somewhat. The charged atmosphere of a fair was not particularly conducive either - there is something quiet and discreet about her jewellery that requires a little considered contemplation.

I am drawn to the nostalgic patina of her work, it appears to offer something emotional even sentimental, but curiously keeps us at a slight distance. Often using photographs - both found Victorian portraits and her own landscape and still life images - there is a deliberate anonymity to the images. A resistance to narrative. Its an interestingly dissociated experience, the portraits in particular should invite us to speculate on the stories and personalities of their subjects, but the considered use of materials and composition somehow displace that relationship.


Bettina Speckner - posting seen here

The use of pearls, diamonds, precious and semi-precious stones juxtaposed with the images do something strange to the surface - they break the fourth wall of our reverie and place us in a more ironic, self aware relationship. The fixings are visible and integral to the pieces which further strengthens that unsettling sense of detachment. These images have become precious objects, functional pieces of jewellery to be worn and admired. There are historical contexts for the work with references to Baroque and Renaissance jewellery through her handling of pearls and stones and through that association the conspicuous statement of wealth and possession. There's a slight discomfort in that relationship - the nature of the images and their dislocation through process challenge and subvert the concept of adornment and its social purpose.


Bettina Speckner has been trained both in a fine arts environment and in craft making processes. Those disciplines both find their expression in her jewellery pieces. There is a fine sensibility rooted in painting and a deep understanding of abstract form, however her work is steeped in the processes of its making and that attention to formal technique adds to its aura of alienation. This in turn reinforces the atmosphere of melancholy that permeates her images and her finished pieces.


Bettina Speckner - posting seen here

That very sense of separation from the emotion of the pieces is intriguing and paradoxically seductive. It lends a tantalising sense of inscrutability to the work, a barring of the way which triggers a perennial dichotomy - the less accessible the more desirable.

I wonder what happens when you wear one of these pieces? When you become the ground for it to inhabit, when you place yourself behind it or against it, when you come to know the other side of the piece and its mechanics, the weight and balance of its physicality. I would love to know!