Q: You are a successful jewelry designer. Since the beginning of 2011 you are a successful component designer as well, working with bronze and copper. Why did you decide to venture out in this direction.
As I've mentioned I wanted to put more of myself into my jewellery designs and that's why I started making my own components and I began working in bronze clay because of the soaring price of silver. When I showed these pieces on various social media sites I started getting enquiries from other jewellery designers about buying some of these pieces.
So eventually I made the decision to set up another shop selling components just to test the water as I had no idea if there really was a
market for my work. I was absolutely astounded by the response and I quickly became very busy with this side of my work. This has worked really well for me because I've have a huge passion for trying new things and it gives me huge scope for doing that. I love the feeling I get when I post new designs and watch the reaction of my customers ...and you always get an instant response from jewellery desingers who use art beads - they're just so enthusiastic.
Q: Since a couple of months you are exploring ceramic. Do you like to explore other materials as well, like glass or polymer clay?
I'm absolutely loving working with ceramic and there are just so many techniques to try out within this medium that I'm pretty sure it's going to be high on my priorities for a long time to come. I love the fact that you have some much time to work with clay and that it can be used sculpturally and in so many other ways so I want to use it to develop more original and individual designs and rely less on commercial tools.
With bronze clay you have to work so quickly to avoid drying that you're more limited to what
you can do and of course, the cost influences the scale you can work on.
I have tried lamp-working and although it was fun it didn't grab me in the way other techniques have so I didn't pursue it. This is no bad thing as it's easy to spread yourself too thinly and there are so many brilliant lamp workers that I'm happy to support them for my glass needs. I use polymer clay for mould making and testing designs but don't have any plans to take it any further at the moment. I'm sure I will discover something else along the way that takes my fancy though...that's just how my brain works.