New Limited Edition Jewellery Collection | Hammered Water
What Inspires a New Jewellery Collection. Have you ever wondered what inspired an artist to paint a certain scene? How musicians arrive at a particular song? The same goes for jewellery. In this blog post I will get into all the aspects that have inspired my latest Contemporary Jewellery Collection: Hammered Water.
Design Considerations
So you’ve seen a piece of jewellery that has really caught your eye, captured your imagination. You can picture yourself wearing this piece and getting plenty of attention at the next exclusive event on your calendar.
You might want to know that this is a one of kind piece. Jewellery art that will ensure you stand out from the crowd. And you want to be able to wear the art, understand the inspiration that makes it so unique.
As a jewellery designer and artist these are all considerations when I am creating a new collection. Inspiring art comes from the soul and is executed in a really interesting way. Plus with jewellery it needs to be wearable, comfortable in materials that are as special ash design and craftsmanship itself.
Jewellery is a subtle, yet intimate form of decoration we wear every day. It conveys who we are.
And as a jewellery artist I’m seeking to maximise this relationship. My latest collection is a prime example.
The Inspiration behind the collection
You’ll know at this stage that all my collections are concept led. This means I start with an idea or theme and work it into a 3D piece of wearable art. This new collection is no different. Developed over the course of an eight month period, it all started with our profound connection to water. July was an extreme example of bad Irish weather - with constant rain and storms. It was gloomy and depressing. Yet simultaneously other parts of the world were suffering severe droughts.
I also reflected on our geographic location in Ireland. We are positioned on the north west coast of Europe. We are an island nation, subject to the vagaries of the Atlantic Ocean and all that this particular climate throws at us. This affects our mindset, shapes our traditions and heritage, makes our land green and exposes us to the elements before the rest of Europe. It makes us who we are.
Our bodies are made up of 60% water. We cannot survive without water. Yet we cannot breathe in water. Water both nourishes us. We get great pleasure and peace from being close to water. We play in it. It brings us joy. But it can also kill us, throw us about like rag dolls, swallow us up, wipe us out.
I wanted to create a collection that acknowledged this relationship by creating statement pieces of jewellery that will adorn the body and present a unique perspective on water. So crafted in the medium of a solid, precious metal shaped and formed in such a way that it is a joy to be worn.
Design Style
A key factor in bringing this collection to life was ensuring visual impact through statement pieces. My design style is always contemporary, clean, robust and usually with straight graphic lines. However like all designers & artists we want always to evolve. For me this meant creating individual pieces that captured the fluidity and movement of water in a sensual style that contoured around the body, shaping the metal to enhance our silhouette while at the same time providing a very tactile yet intimate feeling to the jewellery.
Choosing the Material
I considered the environment that, as a jewellery artist, I almost familiar with. And whether I like it or not life under a blanket of grey cloud affects how we see colour. We don’t have landscapes that are warm to the eye. Ours is a white light that gives everything a pallor and coldness. With this in mind the metal that would best reflect water, under Irish skies, for me was silver.
Craftsmanship
Creating larger jewellery pieces means using a different technique in jewellery making, namely silversmithing. This involves piercing out the basic shapes from sheet silver, annealing the metal regularly to ensure it does not become too brittle or work-hardened. And bit by bit using a series of hammers and mandrels to gradually mould the silver into shape. It is a very hands-on process, with each hammer blow sending shocks up your arm. But this also the beauty and joy involved in the skilled craftsmanship of a handmade technique. Indeed it is a technique used for millenia in Ireland as is evident in the fantastic torques seen in both our National Museums and the V&A London. I’ve given each piece a high polished mirror finish to convey the reflective nature of water.
The Result
A beautifully evocative statement of contemporary jewellery, designed to sensually flow around the body, enhance the female silhouette and reflect the fluidity of water in conversely hammered silver forms.
