Meet The Maker – Julia Parry-Jones

Julia Parry-Jones – Jeweller

A collector by nature, Julia draws inspiration from fragments, curiosities and hidden treasures. Fascinated with the minute and delicate, she creates contemporary, intriguing and feminine jewellery, inviting the wearer to explore the hidden narrative within each piece.

Seek Brooch

Julia’s current collection is inspired by the treasure hoarding habits of the bowerbird, and explores the deliberate contrast of materials, forms and colours through their placement. Hardwoods, vintage elements and semi-precious stones are scattered amongst a showcase of silver and 9 carat gold, carefully arranged until a sense of harmony is achieved through their mismatching chaos. From dainty studs to tumbling neckpieces, her diligent attention to detail and love of the eclectic is evident.

Nestling Jewels Earrings

 Julia graduated with First class honours from Norwich School of Art & Design before completing further training in the London Jewellery quarter. She has exhibited and sold her work widely through galleries and exhibitions across the UK.

Adornment Rings

Heart Gallery is really pleased that in 2013 Julia is showcasing her collection here in Hebden Bridge….it will be in our cabinets soon!

Meet The Maker – Karen Faulkner-Dunkley

Karen Faulkner-Dunkley

Over thirteen years ago Karen made a career change from teaching biology in a college of further education to designing and making jewellery. She has always loved jewellery so it made perfect sense to develop this love into a vehicle to explore her creative ideas.

Silver and 9ct gold rings

Karen now designs and makes elegant, precious metal jewellery in her workshop in rural Cambridgeshire. Her interest in nature is reflected in her designs many of which feature flowers and leaves.

Silver and 9ct gold heart with peacock pearls

Karen works in both silver and gold, but loves to combine the two metals as this produces pieces that look good on people of both cool and warm complexions. Her popular ‘From The Heart’ collection aptly demonstrates the benefits of combining silver and gold.

Silver and 9ct gold studs

This design was developed from a stylised leaf; the imperfectly heart shape being flattering to most face shapes. The hammered silver surface catches the light beautifully, whilst the small polished gold heart provides warmth and accent detail. The added benefit of a hammered surface is that it masks the finger prints and scratches resulting from continual wear. The Heart pendant can also be strung on pearls or beads of different colours to compliment your colouring, accent an outfit or denote your unique quality.

Silver and 9ct heart of natural white pearls

Karen loves texture in her jewellery and has developed a variety of techniques to finish her work. Much of  Karen’s work is forged and textured with hammers, but she also uses the rolling mill and hand press to add impressions, as well as heat and acid to create interesting surfaces and forms.

Silver and resin studs

Karen is very excited about her newest collection, ‘Champagne’, inspired by this sparkling beverage. She combines silver and gold, pearls and precious stones in delicious shapes and forms to produce luxurious jewellery, guaranteed to be coveted by the discerning elegant lady.

Silver and 9ct gold heart charm bracelet

Karen is passionate about designing jewellery that will be cherished and worn regularly. Her aim is to design and make jewellery to suit your looks, personality and lifestyle. This involves taking note of your physical characteristics eg skin tone, hair and eye colour, face shape, your personality type and lifestyle. Get this right and you have a piece of jewellery which will be worn, rather than remain in the box. To help guide her customers through this process Karen has written a book ‘Does this look good on me?’ to guide the reader through the selection process. You can order it here.

‘Does This Look good On Me?’ book by Karen Faulkner-Dunkley

Meet The Maker – Ali Haley

Ali Haley – Jeweller

Ali originally studied for a degree in Graphic Design, but the tactility of working with her hands and making things kept calling to her, so she went back to college and studied Jewellery Design.

Silver pendant by Ali Haley

Having worked in a jewellers for four years repairing jewellery and creating new pieces to commission Ali decided to set up on her own to give herself more artistic freedom.

Silver pendant by Ali Haley

Ali makes her jewellery from recycled silver. Silver mining is incredibly destructive and it is very hard to reconcile that to making pretty items of jewellery. If she is going to make things people can love and love to wear then she wants them to be ethically responsible.

Silver earrings by Ali Haley

Ali’s current collection is inspired by her love of dancing and the dynamic lines of movements that are created whilst spinning around the dance floor. Her favoured technique for creating pieces, and one that has become her signature style, is piercing as it allows her to make intricate patterns in metal using just a drill, a saw, a steady hand and a keen eye.

Silver pendant by Ali Haley

 Ali loves telling people no lasers were involved as they seem surprised that something so intricate can be cut by hand.

 

Silver earrings by Ali Haley

Heart Gallery loves Ali’s first ever collection for us which was showcased in Makepiece in December and we look forward to working closely with her in the future.

Meet The Maker – Caroline Watson

Caroline Watson – Jeweller

From her studio in London Caroline creates jewellery that reminds the wearer of a natural world that is simple and romantic but can also be dark and wild.

Toadstool necklace

Her pieces may be worn as individual charms or styled together to evoke enchanting scenes – a single swallow enjoying the freedom of the open sky, or a woodland gathering of toadstools and wild roses, a wolf in the background, howling under the moon. Her designs are as timeless as the English countryside, enabling the owner to treasure each piece for many years to come.

Charm Bracelet

Her exciting, stylish pieces may be one off bespoke items or part of a larger series, receiving orders from the National Trust and more recently the RSPB. Her work is represented in galleries and shops throughout the United Kingdom and online.

Swallow Studs

Caroline has been established for 16 years. Her jewellery has been featured in several magazines: The Independent, Bride and Groom, You and Your Wedding, Bliss, BBC Practical Gardening, and British Airways ‘In Flight’. Caroline was filmed in her studio designing and making a tiara for the Channel 4 programme Collector’s Lot. Her design projects are also featured in the book Two in One Jewellery Making By Madeline Coles, published by Quarto.

Cufflinks

Meet The Maker – Diana Porter

Diana Porter – Jeweller

Diana contemporary jewellery is chunky and androgynous; it has an intrinsic integrity in both design and finish. 

Pendants silver etched with 22ct gold – choose your word

Her creative inspiration comes from personal and political beliefs, expressed through words which form a major feature of her work.  These are used as decoration in combinations of gold on matt silver, acid etched for contrast of finishes and tactile qualities.

‘And on’ – silver ring etched with 22ct gold and includes a diamond in the ‘o’

‘And on’ silver bangle etched with 22ct gold

Bangles

Often, words are split between two, three or four pieces so that what initially appears as indecipherable marks, make sense only when joined with complementary pieces, giving her work an intriguing additional dimension. 

Pairs and Partners

His and Hers, His and His, Hers and Hers ‘And on’ rings

Diana wanted to be an actor. She trained as a teacher, had two children, was a single parent , did lots of amateur acting, found feminism, worked for twenty odd years as an arts administrator during which time she did fascinating jobs such as running theatre companies both in London & in Bristol, setting up a small scale theatre and community arts centre in Bristol, running Birmingham Women’s Festival. She campaigned for more money for the arts, for equality of opportunities for women, disabled people and ethnic minorities; she demonstrated against nuclear armaments. She got grants for people from the Arts Council of Great Britain, Local Authorities and Regional Arts Boards. She did budgets, wrote reports, filled out a thousand forms.

‘Heaven and Earth’

And then in 1990 she went to the University of Central England to do a 3 year full time degree course in Jewellery and Silversmithing. Diana loved the way that working with metal centred and concentrated her mind; she learned about design and form and her teachers pushed her to develop her design ideas which she now thanks them for; She loved the History of Art part of the course and became passionate about investigating the history of the involvement by women in the arts and crafts. This was 3 years to take stock and to create – it was a gift and the jewellery is an outcome of that.

‘And on’ wide band

On leaving college in 1993, She immediately started her own business making jewellery in her front room. In 1999 she was awarded UK Jewellery Designer of the Year!

‘And on’ partnership pair of silver rings with diamond

She still cannot believe how lucky she has been.  Diana’s collections are in about 40 galleries and shops all over the country and she has the shop of her dreams with workshops behind it – one for the 5 jewellers who hand finish her work and another for her – a room of her own to create and play in! She gets to choose beautiful work to display in the shop from other designers and she meets lovely people who come from miles around to consult about commissions. Employees have come and gone, some have stayed – she’s had work experience people who’ve then joined her, stayed for years and then gone on to set up their own jewellery businesses.

Partnership rings

Heart Gallery feels lucky and blessed to now be stocking Diana’s amazing pieces as we have admired both her and her work for so long. Get yourself down to see it soon – you will not be disappointed!

Diana Porter at her workbench

We obviously cannot showcase all of Diana’s extensive and stunning collections but we have got a great representation of her designs and can also work to commission so if you want to see Diana’s other delights then visit her website and drool at the goodies on display.You can order direct with her or if you want to come in to be measured and discuss your options then call in for that personal touch soon.

Meet The Maker – Charlie Trimm

Charlotte Trimm – papercut artist

Charlotte has continued her methodical approach to creation, which was the foundation of her painting and installation work, to produce a collection of hand-drawn and hand-cut papercuts.

Dandelion clock

These works now come under ‘By Charlie’s Hand’. Founded in 2011, By Charlie’s Hand is one girl armed with a scalpel, lots of patience and a touch of OCD, as well as a love of coloured paper and tea. Charlotte has been producing highly detailed and intricate works which often explore nature, repetitive motifs and symmetry.

Mr Stag

Charlotte’s papercuts have a unique style which echoes Charlotte’s previous structured approach, which often explored colour and repetitive patterns, bringing order to the natural elements while adding a contemporary twist to traditional rhymes and familiar motifs.  Birds, trees, plants and animals feature heavily in her work but the chaos of nature is given a distinctive shape, most often becoming contained within perfect circles and hearts.

Tweetheart in Kingfisher

Magpies

These original papercuts have also grown into a range of products that includes giclee prints, greeting cards and cushion covers. Joining forces with Scottish jewellery designer and maker Molly Ginnelly (a jeweller also showcasing her amazing work in Heart Gallery at the moment) on a continuing collaboration, Charlotte’s work has found new mediums that combine both artists’ styles, leading to the distinctive and highly wearable ‘When Molly met Charlie’ collection of earrings, necklaces and brooches made of formica and silver.

Collaboration between Charlie Trimm and Molly Ginnelly now at Heart Gallery

Meet The Maker – Miranda Sharpe

Miranda Sharpe – Jeweller

Miranda started her professional practice/business designing and making contemporary jewellery in 2001 and has exhibited and sold her work widely across the UK and ventured into the international market place.  She enjoys the challenges of designing and producing a unique range of jewellery that holds commercial possibilities, alongside opportunities to create one-off or commission specific piece’s that can be larger/ bolder in design.

Miranda Sharpe – Flourish necklace

 Miranda studied for a BA Hons degree in 3D design at Manchester Metropolitan University, followed by an MA specialising in jewellery design at the Birmingham School of Jewellery. Her latest work explores ideas of emotion and emotional responses. One strand is inspired heavily by microscopic images of disease and bacteria, translating images of matter that we find unpleasant and finding the beauty within it to evoke a contrasting response.

Miranda Sharpe – Thrive 6 piece necklace

For this work she is exploring scale by working on larger pieces for walls as well as pieces of jewellery.

Miranda Sharpe – Thrive 5 drop necklace

Miranda’s approach to jewellery is to express what interests her visually, drawing on shape and form from the natural world and presenting it an abstracted way. Through the design process she explores form through simple lines and how repeating or layering materials and components can change the effect of a piece. 

Miranda Sharpe – Flourish multi drop earrings

Heart Gallery loves Miranda’s work and our customers do too – add her to your ‘wish list’ before it sells out!

Miranda Sharpe – Flourish ring stack

Meet The Maker – Christine Kaltoft

Christine Kaltoft – Jeweller

Christine designs and makes graphic contemporary jewellery and works mostly in fine gold and silver wires, sometimes including elements of wood. Her techniques include soldering, welding, and forging.

Silver necklace from the Nest Collection

Christine’s inspiration comes from the movements and sounds she comes across. She captures these moments with quick sketches and later creates jewellery that conveys the energy of the experience, resulting in jewellery that bursts or flows, is simple and elegant, or complex and layered. Her pet hens, and the wild birds that had flooded into her garden once her ancient cats had died, have begun to emerge in her work. 

‘Golden Egg necklace’, silver, walnut, 18 carat gold

Tiny nest studs, oxidised silver & 18 carat gold

Christine’s latest work is inspired by the garden in her new home in Bruton. The rolling hills and valleys, amazing skies, birds and plants all make an appearance.

Nest rings and nest capsule ring

Flock necklace, oxidised silver & 18 carat gold

Making one-off brooches as seminal pieces, the rest of the collection followed. Exuberant, light, and graphic. Christine’s jewellery is made to be worn: little signals that the wearer cares about objects with meaning and provenance.

Sprig necklace, oxidised silver and gold plated silver

Walnut sprig pendants, silver, walnut, & 18 carat gold

Heart Gallery is proud to showcase Christine’s Nest collection in our Summer Showcase and hope that you get to call in to see it shortly.

Meet The Maker – Anna De Ville

Anna de Ville – Jeweller

Essentially self taught, Anna works on the flat. The shape of the piece is sawn from a sheet of silver and then built up a layer at a time. The areas to be applied are cut out with very sharp snips and then soldered into place. The last details are made with fine silver wire. The dramatic black and white “wood block” look is achieved by oxidising the background and polishing the foreground with a selection of mops and brushes.

Raven necklace

All Anna’s inspiration comes from the natural world. The figurative side of her work is shown in humorous interpretation of animals.

Large Tawny Owl Necklace and Tawny Owl Earrings

Badgers and frogs sit alongside cheeky starlings and bemused looking owls.

Guillemot Brooch

Her latest project is to explore the design possibilities of the plumage of particular birds like the avocet and raven in a series of limited edition brooches and necklaces.

Shag Earrings with Beads

These hand made pieces are a real joy to work on and make Anna want to get up in the morning and we are proud to be showcasing some of her fabulous limited edition pieces.

Guillemot necklace

Meet The Maker – Bek Genery

Bek Genery – Jeweller

Bek has been lucky enough to bump into people along the way who have taught her the basics of playing with metal including a jeweller, a Norfolk tractor driver with a welding shed, a third generation engineer and a blacksmith from Yorkshire! She has a real belief in learning direct from crafts people. The rest is experimentation and the library.

Affirmation tag bracelets

Bek has always been interested in processes that start with a pile of raw materials and end up with an object. She has experimented with a range of techniques such as tempera painting, spinning and knitting, felt making and eventually settled on precious metals and stones.  This allowed her to bring together a love of treasure, decoration, self-expression, craftsmanship and an excuse to indulge her desire to just get up and go places. Her work has a rough luxe spirit.

Affirmation tag earrings

Bek is interested in where the materials lead you in themselves, how far you can stretch them. Cold forming and reticulation appeal to her particularly. The geology and structural properties of stones and small found objects that can be incorporated into the metal shape her work.

Affirmation tag ring

Affirmation tag necklace

When we travel both geographically and chronologically we often take a keep-sake with us, something that anchors us in some way to the place or people that we come from or to ourselves; they act as navigation aids as we negotiate our way about. Bek is interested in these objects (contemporary and historical), actual compasses and astrolabes as well as lucky coins, photos, bits of baby blanket and locks of hair.

Affirmation tag selection

Bek has created a range of affirmation pieces for us and if her words don’t call out to you then why not chose some of your own and ask us to make you a piece. Bek is happy to work on commissions to help you personalise a piece for you or for a loved one.

Affirmation tag selection