Collaboration over competition
You know that feeling when you get to meet someone who you admire?
Through lockdown and Instagram I have had the great pleasure of meeting lots of new people whose work I love and whose ethos reflects my own. I have bought, sold and swapped work with some of these people and had some very inspiring conversations which have helped to shape my new work over the past 12 months.
One unexpected and pivotal virtual meeting was with a fellow maker called Jo Sweeting who I admire very much. Jo bought a piece from my talisman range and following on from that, I was very excited to be asked by this stone carver, poet and artist(@thestonecarver) to collaborate on a series of brooches that walk the line between her Wunderkammer and Wordhorde projects and my Talisman project.
Each brooch starts as a pebble shaped piece of silver which I send off to Jo. She chooses a word from her Wordhoard project and designs the lettering which she applies to the surface. I then etch that silver pebble before crafting a setting for it. This maybe a frame or a boxed setting, and I use oxidising as well as polished silver to highlight different parts of the brooch depending on the word.
Every brooch is hallmarked and I add a little secret detail to the back of each one in a visual reflection of the word’s meaning.
Palsh - To walk slowly while looking closely, Devon Dialect.
Foundle - Anything found on a hillside, Sussex dialect.
Bide - In Old English is ‘bidan’ which means to tolerate, remain, stay for, endure, reside.
Dimpse - First and last of the days light. Dimsey, dimity, dimpsey.
It is a joy to be collaborating with Jo and the work that is forming is something I feel to be very poignant and important. The images here give you a taster of what is happening in my workshop and we are sharing each finished piece through our Instagram feed where you can also buy them. @lucyspinkjewellery and @thestonecarver
Please check out Jo’s work too, she has worked alongside brilliant people like Tanya Shadrick and Louisa Thomsen Brits as well as Robert Macfarlane whose works are a thing of wonder to me.