We aim to show a different jeweller with every exhibition. Please contact us if you would like to show with us.

Person

My official work is with words, but making has always been important to me. I originally

trained and worked as a bookbinder, in London and then in Norfolk; later, after accidentally

slipping into an academic career, I took evening classes in silver jewellery with Alice

Goldsack in Bristol, and over the following years gradually built up my own workshop and

practice. This has now evolved to include painting as well, and I am constantly looking for

ways to bring my different media into conversation.

I work under the name Poet &Cat, so as to keep making and academia just slightly separate;

the ‘Poet’ element is because I was a writer first (see

honour of my two feline companions: first Smokey, and now Tirzah, both British Blue rescue

cats.

Jewellery

I work mainly in sterling silver, with some copper and brass. In the past I was shy of precious

and semi-precious stones, and worked entirely with sea-glass and china collected from

beaches in Cornwall. I still use these, but I now combine them with semi-precious stones, as

well as using semi-precious beads in the same necklaces as pieces of found wood and metal.

This juxtaposition of found materials with sterling silver and ‘real’ jewels is important to me;

I love the contrast, and the questions it raises about how ‘precious’ is defined.

The style of my work is bold and tactile, and I enjoy contrasting textures and asymmetry, and

I like the handmade nature of the pieces to be visible. This applies particularly to my

necklaces: I make the chains for almost all of them entirely by hand, creating each link

individually, so that no two are the same.

Links