I have been quietly obsessed with metals, precious and otherwise from a
very early age, really since the day I reluctantly signed up for a day trip to
Whitechapel Gallery, only to be blown away by a small exhibition of
David Smith's Sculptures. My teenage mind had never encountered anything quite like those enormous architectural megaliths of angular
and textured steel! That was it. I never played up in Art lessons
again, and in the ensuing years I completed a degree in Three Dimensional Design at the University of Wales, then by way of a PGCE (teaching) in art, followed an ancient traditional blacksmithing journeyship.
I
learned the fantastic craft of forging steel and iron with some of the
most amazingly skilled Blacksmith masters in the UK, who not only shared
with me their incredible knowledge and skills, but also made me some of
the tools I use in my workshop today.
My background in
artist blacksmithing and large scale metalwork has had a really strong
influence on the way I work with precious metals, and I love chunky
textured silver best of all!
I set up Glasswing Jewellery in 2005 whilst living in West Cornwall, as a way of being able to carry on my passion for metal work - only scaled down a bit from the blacksmithing days! ~ so that it would fit on to the kitchen table, where almost everything in our family with small children happened! I started with wire and beads, then slowly started to get back into silversmithing.
I collected sea glass on the beaches of Devon and Cornwall, and built my gold and silver collection around the unique pieces I found.
Since then, Glasswing has become a very busy, full time way of life, and I have continued to develop my work to include recycled silver and ethical gemstone set wedding and engagement rings, and recycled gold jewellery, and I have enjoyed working with customers to create special commissions and sending my work all over the world.
Glasswing recently relocated to South Devon where my seaside studio is slowly taking shape. The workshop is only footsteps from the shoreline where much of the sea glass I use is collected!
I make jewellery mostly to commission, making unique one off pieces, and I
send my work worldwide. If you would like to discuss having a piece of unique ethical jewellery made especially for you contact me at info@glasswingjewellery.com or visit my website.
